The Free One
by doesnotloveyou
Summary: Hydra kidnaps an enhanced woman and has the Winter Soldier keep an eye on her. When both escape into Europe, they learn to trust each other as they recover their lost memories—Set after CA:TWS in a universe where Bucky made it to Europe but was recaptured by Hydra—Rated M for violence & language.
1. Longing

**[Warnings: Non-Graphic Violence, Physical Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse]**

* * *

The three-month downpour had finally reached a truce with them. Muddy water rose in sheets from the massive treads of the heavy ordnance truck as it jerked down the winding forest road, its load lighter than usual. The parcel in the open truck bed wasn't secured, wasn't guarded, wasn't concealed or shielded from the elements. At first glimpse of the compound's eighteen-foot fence, the driver accelerated, sweat dampening his collar.

Clearance was quick, the gates opened and shut swiftly. Russian was thrown back and forth over the radios, guns were cocked, and the truck was left running just inside the gates. The nearest underlings were commanded to lower the tailgate while a gurney or something like it was procured. One of them, his hand already on the latch, jumped when a body bag was thrown at his feet instead.

Tailgate dropped, they mechanically climbed into the bed and dragged the parcel out; one took her by the shoulders, the other by the tether wound about her ankles. Mud speckled her face, and one side was bright pink from being pressed to the metal truck bed for hours. Long strands of wet hair wrapped around the one soldier's wrist, and he just barely kept himself from shaking it off. They got her to the edge of the tailgate and rolled her off onto the body bag, where she hit with a thud.

A brisk shower, a uniform, a haircut—she woke up during that, but nodded off again. They let down their guard when her second awakening was to ask for water. Soon after she was transferred to the interrogation cell.

"I didn't think she'd be this amenable," an officer stated behind the two-way mirror.

"She's faking," the other replied, "that's why we need the additional security."

For her, it was blur: waking up in a metal chair in a metal room with a white man in a uniform eyeing her closely. Another blink and it was a different white man in a lab coat. Her hands weren't bound this time, but she couldn't move them, felt like concrete; tongue like sandpaper, head holding in a dense fog. She couldn't see past it.

She couldn't speak well either, something had happened to her voice; or was she just slower? They asked her questions in Russian, some in English, and she had to answer in an unspecified amount of time. Too slow— _slap_ —too fast— _punch—_ and other times it seemed they just wanted to. She couldn't really feel the hits, didn't enjoy them, but didn't really register them until she lifted her head from a blow and noticed blood on the knee of her uniform. Tasted it too, on her lips. Licked it away to wet her tongue. No one hit her for that. They just called her something that made her shake.

"Interrogations" lasted two weeks. Quite often they left her in the chair overnight or until she fell out of it. Food and water came sparingly, tranquilizers and muscle relaxants administered regularly. She didn't think she was stupid, wanted to prove it. Wanted to not get hit.

They'd ask her to repeat things, in any language, and she'd repeat it. Their voices didn't hurt as much when she complied. They asked her questions not unlike the ones on her first day, and she replied with rote answers. They stopped hitting her with their hands, and they lowered their voices and addressed her more as an inert thing than as a hostile subject. But the names they called her, the things they told her she'd done, those felt like hits. She didn't know why.

By their books, things had gone exceedingly well here. The initial capture had been risky enough, let alone a successful harboring and conditioning of the prisoner. Two-Six was her identifier now, a name as meaningless as possible to throw off the scent. There was an advantage in that no one was looking for her, but that was exclusively accompanied by a "yet."

No one felt safe who remained in the compound with her. They were far from dismantling the atomic bomb that had fallen into their lap. They couldn't play with its power yet either.

Her first trial completed, they sent her to the far end of the camp. An underground cell block, shallowly buried, unused since the last war. This wasn't a prison, there were no prisoners; one wasn't brought here to survive. A random cell was picked, three-by-five, and she was left there placid and unharmed. Plumbing still worked, there was a bench, and food would arrive when it arrived.

She sat down and laid her hands palms-up on her knees. The thinking was over. They'd let her rest now.


	2. Rusted

The conditioning of Two-Six couldn't have been more hurried. There was some uneasiness about this and how quickly she'd taken to it, but her handlers repeated their mantra that solitary was for the best. For everyone. They needed to focus on another.

The Asset arrived exactly and precisely when scheduled to and not a minute sooner. His recon team followed him as far as the gates, saw him through, and stopped for idle chat with the guards. No one batted an eye at the Asset. He only killed who he was told to kill, and always had. Almost always.

Routine ensued as his personal handlers had arrived a day early in expectation of him. A room was set up to detain, recondition, and repair him. He was stripped, cleaned, shaved, and given his inactive uniform. He stared at the wall or the floor, completely malleable, thoughtless unless thought was introduced.

What wasn't routine was the box. Chained down, sealed in, a threat placed around his temples. They'd do more than wipe him if he pulled another vanishing act on them.

Thirty-nine days. He was routinely let out of the box for exercise, fed a precise diet, tested and retested for deviances—his interrogations lasted longer and were more brutal, but he never made errors and they were unconcerned with punishing him for entertainment's sake.

Thirty-nine days. Three guards entered the underground cell block at the back of the compound. They found Subject Two-Six seated peacefully in her cell, though slightly surprised by their arrival. Two of them were tempted to be "a little late" in delivering her to her handlers. One of them wasn't stupid and knew which side of life or death he wanted to be on.

Conditioning of Two-Six recommenced; chemical and psychological. She'd found a clarity in her cell once her system had recovered from its intoxication. Unhappy to lose it, she gently shrunk away from the first needle. They beat her until she saw double, and drugged her double to match.

"You'll put her into a coma, then what?" asked the doctor.

" _You_ won't do any such thing," said one of her handlers. "She's too strong for what we have on hand, be glad we have a lot of it."

When the room stopped spinning, her arms were bound behind the chair back. Blood and spit dripped from her open lips, stuck in her eyelashes, and dried on her ears. She swallowed and coughed, coughed harder, deep racking sounds coming from her lungs.

"What is that?" demanded a handler.

"Something she'd developed in solitary. Air down there would disease your balls before they fell off frozen."

There was a general chuckle. Two-Six could hear them. Couldn't before, before the before, before the…shit? Before being in solitary. Couldn't hear through walls. Could now, despite the ringing.

She didn't answer questions very eloquently, slurred. They didn't hit her for this. She'd learned her lesson for the day. If only she could keep her eyes open.

"Did the cold affect her sleeping patterns?" an obtuse handler asked.

There was silence. Looks were cast sideways at the speaker.

"Those dark circles under her eyes aren't from Valiyev's fists, pisshead."

 _Yeah, sleep's a distant friend,_ she thought. _Lucky there weren't rats down there with her._ How did she know rats might be a problem? Was that…had she, been incarcerated before? Solitary had given her ample time to think about all the things she didn't know. Like who the hell this Two-Six character was when it wasn't her, but wasn't somebody else, and if it wasn't her then who was _she_ , and loads of other time-consuming questions that keep you busy when you can't sleep for thirty-eight nights.

She coughed again. Blood came out this time. Her tongue. Bit down on it during the beating.

"Hasn't forgotten her lines. That's good."

"Hasn't gone insane and killed us all is better. Heard they found out what happened to the southern camp. We would've been next."

"Can still be next."

"Drop it." The one present officer made sure backs straightened at his tone of voice. "As if Hydra doesn't know the value of what's sitting in that room. And you think the Asset was sent here on holiday? You all know what he can do."

 _Not in that box he can't_ , thought one of the researchers subversively. He inhaled sharply. Others glanced at him. He voiced something, a passing thought.

Two-Six shuddered through another cough, tiring the handler who was with her in the room. A small order was given and the guard slapped her. The question was repeated and Two-Six answered accurately.

A roomful of eyes watched her through the two-way glass.


	3. Seventeen

Something about being outside again, between the transfers from her cell to the lab. New cell, just as ugly, but less cold. When she showers they watch her though. Anyway. Outside.

Head hurt from messing up the interrogation again. Didn't do it on purpose, but they screamed at her like she did. Drugs, drugs, drugds, durgs. Rain turned to hail.

That's right. Outside she felt things. Crawling things, itching things, touching things. As soon as she was inside and they uncuffed her, she ran all ten fingers through her hair to get the ice out and to touch her own scalp. Flinched though, finding a cut. She scratched the back of her neck then clasped both hands around it. Could feel her own pulse. That was interesting. What else was interesting?

The muzzle of a gun rapped her elbow. Not a threat, but a warning. She dropped her arms obediently, coughing hard.

They'd brought her to a building she hadn't been in yet. The door was clean. Ground was clean too. They pushed her ahead where the lights had just flickered on. She kept thinking to herself, about herself, about the ground. Couldn't look up from the ground, head hurt. Thinking too much? Nah. There's drugs for that though. Don't let them know.

She grunted as the butt of a gun met her this time, square in the back and hard enough to make her catch herself.

"Go through the door, stupid."

Another door? The doctor stood just inside. Needle hurt less this time.

"Lie on the bed."

She did, but on her side. It was a large bed, could fit three people. She wasn't expecting the door to shut and the doctor to be gone with it. Gonewtih—gone with it. Gone with…the wind.

Door opening again woke her up. Something walked in, and the door shut. She didn't think they hit her with sedatives tonight, she was just this tired. It got in the bed with her, lying down behind her. Lights were still on. How long had she been here?

Which "here" was she asking herself?

The lights went out. Too much thinking hit the chemicals in her bloodstream like a doe to a Dodge. She sighed through her nostrils. The drugs were only doing her a favor. Maybe she preferred a blank mind…

It grabbed her shoulder with something metallic and cold, yanking her onto her back. Didn't feel like anything to get upset about. Maybe she could sleep through it.

It hit her in the face with a flesh fist, still holding her arm down. Her head spun, ears rung, but her pulse remained steady. The fist came back and this time she caught it. The dark became less dark.

Her legs moved first, creating momentum as she threw herself off the bed. The thing in her hand and the thing attached to her arm were one thing, and thus it flew like one thing as she launched it across the room and into the cinderblock wall. It hit with a _smack_ , landing on the metal appendage.

The lights came on. She got back in bed. Their handlers flooded the room and extracted them both separately, returning them to their usual quarters.

No one was punished.

The Asset was released the next morning in an undesirable mood. He struck a handler and all firearms in the room instantly aimed at his head. This was new policy. They weren't allowed to kill him before; too much of an investment as well as being Pierce's favorite pet. Next to Nick Fury, that was. When one failed to kill the other, Hydra collapsed worse than a 9/11 metaphor. So, a bullet to the brain was now allowed in the case of the "asset."

Primarily because he'd developed one of his own in the aftermath. Went AWOL for some months, developed an identity, undid at least fifteen years of conditioning. Though resources were aimed elsewhere they got lucky and snared him again. Dragged him back—damaged goods were still something when the Avengers were picking off your reserves by the hour—and started the whole nasty process over. Wasn't as refined without Pierce there to help the Asset focus on his own brainwashing, but it worked to get him into his little glass box and it kept him docile outside it too.

Being thrown against a wall had shaken him, and that wasn't normal. He could be remembering everything again and coming back to himself. If he was as old as murmurs claimed, he had no self to revert to, just the one he'd developed during an extended stay in the States. And they didn't know how that self _felt_ about Two-Six.

Two-Six was amazingly the only one who was calm about any of this, providing them a collective sigh of relief. The only order she'd been given last night was to get in the bed. She obeyed that, returning after defending herself from an unknown force. She'd be pliable to try it again.

But they had to change something. Her powers were intact and she knew how to access them. They were unsure whether it was the drugs or self-confidence that made her so nonchalant about her "newfound" ability. Another two weeks in advanced interrogations would do it, giving the Asset time to get over their last encounter.

All her answers were wrong this time because the questions were different. Again, limbs too heavy to fight back in case she'd learned she could, but she caught on fast. Answered fast, let the words worm deep into her subconscious, let them climb down her throat even as she spoke them. Just to avoid another strike from her new guard. Didn't know he wasn't the hitting type; part of the new program. He could inflict other punishments if needed.

Three weeks went by. By their count, her sense of self was nearly burnt out. She could recite Hydra's manifesto in various languages, but that was a party trick. It was the other things, the names they made her call herself, the insults, the lies, and of most phenomenal importance her sheer willingness to brainwash herself. Just to avoid physical pain! It explained her previous persona so much.

By her count, she'd been hit, smacked, or kicked eighteen more times. The new guard seemed to delight in her nonreactions to his abuse, and had added vicious hair-pulling to the list. That lasted longer than a hit so she didn't know how to count it yet.

This time they brought her directly to the bed. She lied down, drifted off immediately and woke again a minute later because she couldn't move her arm. Left wrist handcuffed to a metal bar in the headboard. This didn't matter to her much. Meant they couldn't just yank her away like last time. Still hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep, just laid awake not-thinking in her cell. This room had a bed with a real mattress. She liked those apparently.

"The woman in the bed is not an enemy of Hydra."

This was spoken in thick Russian outside the door of the short hallway that led to this room. The other door of the many doors she could still remember from the first time they brought her here eighteen hits ago.

"She is nobody. She is nothing. Ignore her."

The outer door opened. The inner door opened. She could hear the metal thing again. The man it was attached to approached the bed, climbed in behind her, and the lights went out. She waited, but he did not hit her, though he too laid awake for a while. Tired of waiting, she adjusted her cuffed wrist to a more comfortable position and slept.

She dreamed. About the man lying behind her, dreamed he was lying behind her, so in the morning she didn't know it had been a dream. When the guard woke her by removing her handcuff, the other man was already gone.

No one hit her that day. She was fed more than usual, though she still wasn't sure what it was they fed her. Something on a plate, comes with lukewarm tea; the only thing that kept her cough down.

Again to the bedroom, again handcuffed, again rudely awoken when the other man's handler gave him instructions outside her door. Next night, same. Next night, same. It was wonderful. All sleep and no quandaries to puzzle her until morning.

And then they changed his instructions.

"The woman in the bed is an ally of Hydra. She is to be protected and her needs met. Proceed with your best judgment."

She yawned. Whatever. The man lay down behind her and after that she fell asleep.

The Asset lay awake. This order created a conflict within him that had nothing to do with its subject. Protection and care were not in his standard field which threw him, but worst of all it required he fall back on other times he'd protected people. The man he'd pulled out of the river, his mark. He didn't kill him. He could have. Dropping him on the bank was enough to force some water from his lungs, enough to stir him into a drowsy consciousness. And he…left him there, like that. So, he'd actually rescued him. He'd disobeyed an order so far as to _save_ him from death.

The woman behind him coughed in her sleep and it quickly became a series of dry, painful heaves. He rolled over and shook her arm. "Hey."

She muttered something, but her coughs interrupted it. Sighing in frustration, he lifted her into a seated position and held her chin. "Breathe."

And she obeyed, and her airflow functioned normally and her coughs receded. He laid her back down carefully, knowing more about the respiratory system and its anatomy than a moral man should. The woman gradually fell back asleep.

He could still feel the ground of the riverbank.


	4. Daybreak

It must've been a subtle change in schedule, a handler late to their post, a necessary item misplaced, because ordinarily they wouldn't let him see this. Or rather, they would've cleared it out of his way sooner.

Despite his instability and previous desertion, the Asset's age-old programming had held fast. He could still be trusted to walk on his own with only a light escort. His evening schedule had him showered, fed, dressed, and on his way to the bedroom with the enhanced test subject. Yes, he knew which ones were test subjects and which ones were assets like himself. For one, assets were never allowed to meet.

It was in coming down the blue-tiled hall to the bedroom that he had to stop in his tracks prematurely as they trundled a medical stand out of the room. He recognized the vials and bottle on it and was not surprised. As soon as her handlers had the stand and the doctor out of his way, he stood at attention by the outer door where his own handler already waited.

"Evening, soldier." The greeting was standard, touched by the slightest tone of respect.

The Asset already knew his opening words by heart.

"The woman in the bed is…"

Every night they gave him a new description of her, as though he couldn't remember it was the same woman from the last night. Some days complying with their orders was difficult, but fighting his programming to defy them was next to impossible. It wasn't like this before the river, which they'd tried desperately to make him forget. And the helicarrier. And the bridge.

They'd practically sweated blood trying to uproot the name James Buchanan Barnes from his memory—a second time, not that he could remember the first. His mind might've been a slave, but his memories were no longer in a sealed vault. He let them think it while he carried out their orders. He didn't speak the name "Bucky" aloud as he was once more called "soldier" before letting himself into the bedroom.

As usual the woman was cuffed to the headboard, appearing to be asleep but faking. He closed the door behind himself and listened for the strong bolts to slide into place. The lights were on a set timer, but tonight they didn't go off. They'd actually lost time waiting for the doctor to exit, so if the lights weren't out when he stepped in it meant this had been an intentional setup.

Jaw set, he approached the bed. It was one thing to keep him in the box, another to put him through their experiments too. At least his orders tonight were the same as the last two nights; care and protection of Subject Two-Six weren't insurmountable odds. Except tonight he knew what chemicals they'd given her and that sedatives weren't among them. If she slept it was because her body no longer knew what else to do. They needed her stupid, but capable.

To his dislike, she was sleeping on her back with her head turned toward his side of the bed. They usually kept their backs to each other, and he was more comfortable that way. He didn't want a test subject staring at the back of his head all night thinking of ways to crush it. A shitload of drugs didn't make him trust her any.

He could lie down facing her, but their handlers would consider that intimidation and would make him change it. It would also require he lay on the metal shoulder, and the pain of doing so had not dulled over the decades. Lying on his back was the only option.

As soon as he did, her eyes peeled open to grace him with that empty stare. Dead-eyed, stoned, pupils dilated. Must be why they installed a soft light in this room, didn't want to damage her eyesight. Must be important because they weren't always that tender.

They'd never properly met in the light. Her lips parted like she might say something, but he realized she was just slack-jawed. Her eyes rolled to his metal arm and stared at that. He assumed the shine or the red paint had caught her eye, like a little rodent come out of the walls.

She blinked slowly, slower. She fell asleep.

In another handful of minutes the lights shut off. He lay awake, letting himself gently worry about his research left waiting in an envelope under a kitchen tile in Portugal. Some moments he was lucid and could think straight enough to make a plan on how to retrieve it. The rest of the time he forgot he'd even been there. Between their attempts to control his thoughts, and the mind-numbing routine they put him through each day, when he managed to remember something it was brand new to him. Hours passed, and he fell asleep thinking, knowing they'd make him forget it all again in the morning.

The bed shook abruptly and his eyes snapped open. Had she fallen off? He heard the cuffs straining against metal, and her coughing uncontrollably, so he got up quickly. She was on her hand and knees coughing at the floor, and when he reached down to pull her up before her handlers came in, she whined in distress. Getting her to stop coughing took a while, and in the meantime the lights had switched on.

"Get back in the bed," he threatened in Russian.

She swallowed carefully, her wrist twisted in the cuff. She did try to find the bed, but he ran out of patience and lifted her in himself.

"Ow." She straightened out her wrist, lying on her side so she could hold the metal away from her skin for a moment. He lay down again, and noticed a speck of blood on the back of her pants. He turned onto his right side.

"доброй ночи." _Good night,_ she said quietly, pulling her legs up to her chest.

He sighed heavily. "доброй ночи."

...

 _6 Hours Earlier_

Room was too cold. Earlier the hallway had been too hot, now the room was too cold. She squeezed her thighs together in the steel chair, trying to overwhelm the pain. Breathing strained, she wanted to rock in place, get some momentum to counteract it. Couldn't, not with them watching from the mirror. Hummed to herself very quietly instead, just making random noises really. Never knew if it was the vibrations or what, but cramps hurt less if she was allowed to make noise.

They liked her pain too much here. Easier to hide it when they hit her, but her own biology was a bitch. First couple months she was here, didn't really notice; light flow, moderate pain. This month was one of those tha t her. She let out a little shuddering gasp, a feel sorry for herself exhale. Felt twelve again, in a cold bathroom by herself at school, afraid she'd get in trouble for being gone from class so long.

Look at that, she remembered something.

The white man with the Hairline had a sick little smile on his lips as she struggled through questions this time. Took her a few days to realize the questions weren't following the same theme anymore. Used to drill her on her loyalties to Hydra and her penance for all she'd done to damage Hydra. Now they were personal, present questions like,

"Do you remember what you did to the man in your bed a few nights ago? Could you do it again?"

She shivered. "Maybe."

Toes curled in her thin shoes. She was breathing too loud. Turned into a coughing fit, bending her in half, and she winced once it was over. No one hit her, handler didn't even budge.

"Deliver a better answer, this time, Two-Six. Could you do it again? Sit up straight when you answer."

Bending and then straightening felt good on her muscles, so she sighed a little in relief when she sat up. "Yes."

Next she knew, someone was reseating her in the chair after she'd been on the floor. Words were exchanged, rather sharply, in a language she didn't know. The doctor arrived with a different bottle, but her handler gave her an aluminum bat.

"Crush it."

This was insanity, handing her a weapon? She was afraid to drop it and afraid to hold it. Her handler crooked a finger at the doctor who quickly gave him the bottle and a syringe. Handler nodded at the bat.

"Crush it, and we'll relieve the pain." He jiggled the bottle in front of her.

It was like squeezing wet clay. The bat was removed, indelibly reshaped to fit her hands, and the syringe was filled. It worked fast, practically melting her into her seat. They had something lewd to say about this.

She was then handed something else. It looked familiar, like the Asset's arm, but, lighter. They hadn't bothered with the star or added a hand to it, but she knew what it was supposed to represent.

"No."

The bat hit her across the shoulder blades, and she bit her tongue to hold back from screaming.

"Do the same thing you did with the bat," ordered her handler dryly as though nothing had happened. "You're taking too much time with this."

She set the "arm" in her lap, pretending to check it for the best place while blinking away tears. Taking the forearm in one hand and the bicep in the other, she twisted in opposite directions. The elbow snapped into a crooked position, and from there she wrenched it off the rest of the way.

A freed shard of metal cut her superficially, leaving a smear of blood for her to find later, but beyond that it was an amusing performance. Meaningless of course; the real thing would be fighting back her strength with its own, but just in case it ever came in contact with a certain _other_ physically enhanced individual…

By morning of the next day, they were less than amused. For one thing, the Asset had not been as docile as they'd wanted from him, but that was a lost cause so they didn't discuss it. It was the American bitch not following a direct order to attack him. They even gave her the leeway of deciding _when_ to attack him, saying only "before the lights come back on" and even leaving them on longer so she could plan her attack at a time when her drugs hadn't quite kicked in yet. Multiple nights of him being instructed to protect her as though she were Steve Rogers himself—eyes were everywhere, they knew he'd intentionally rescued him—were even intended as a cushion for her.

Did they want her to kill him or him to kill her? No, that would be irresponsible. But the experiment was moot if she couldn't do her part. Prove the Asset could be overpowered and punish him at the same time, and they'd finally have the go-ahead to ship her somewhere better equipped to conduct further testing.

They were containing a tigress in a playpen and a great white in a kiddie pool while the Avengers were decimating their supply lines and fast approaching. If Baron von Strucker understood what they had here surely he wouldn't be focusing so much on that damn scepter? Word even had it his own enhanced subjects kept dying.

So. Two-Six. She'd have to be forced again like her first night. Something more substantial too, since throwing him into a wall and climbing back into bed was laughable at best. They knew what her rage could do before, so that's what they'd have to use. An unstable chemical formula, her anger combined with the Asset's deviant streak. He might break her out if she too managed to remember the source of her emotions, might let her kill them all while he ran. But with Hydra backed up to the precipice, its leaders and strongholds on the verge of extinction, every risk was worth it.

The decision was unanimous. One more day was all they needed.


	5. Furnace

**Trigger Warning: There is a non-graphic attempted rape in this chapter (right in the middle).**

* * *

The temperatures in the interrogation cell were purposely fluctuated. She was brought there the moment they woke her; no food, no shower, no change of clothes, and certainly no pain killers. Sometimes a handler came in and drilled her on her loyalty to the cause in any language he chose, but mostly she was left alone or with a guard's two fists. Insults were thrown, more concerning her lack of intelligence and loose morals, her weakness in the face of danger, and her sheer inability to care for herself without their help and protection.

She knew perfectly well why this was happening, she didn't need to be informed. When the steel bat was reintroduced and swung past her head or cracked against her chair, the meaning was clear. Still she acted dumb to it, barely flinching, eyes unfocused, and only a low moan when struck.

At least if tonight did fail, she'd learn a brand new lesson. And they'd have it on film in case she forgot.

Memory, however, was a funny thing.

They didn't even ask about the nightmare. You'd think it was something they'd ask about, but she'd caught on and she was glad. They didn't have a psychologist on hand. Their skilled staff was thin, mostly brutes and that thing they kept putting in her room at night. That was what scared her out of bed, waking up from the most lucid experience she'd had in months and realizing something was lying behind her. Reflexes clumsy from sleep and the handcuff she'd forgotten about. It was humiliating, pathetic. But they misread it completely as a botched attempt at starting a conflict. Blamed her cough. They were stupid stupid, blind and stupid. She held onto that dream all day.

Two-Six sat still in her seat, sucking on her cut lip, waiting for the next thing that would get her hit. Didn't know how long she'd been in here with the lights and the crazy heater and the bat. Cramps didn't hurt as much today, and she didn't have to think about them when her vision was blurry and her limbs stung. It was possible he'd broken something, she thought she'd heard a crack. Her patience wasn't the drugs anymore, it was just her. There was something in her head to occupy her, something they didn't put there. Well, not intentionally. Not recently.

Finally she was fed. Shower was brief, they barely let the blood wash off her. Not noticing any creaks or grinds as they led her to the bedroom, she concluded nothing was broken that needed immediate attention. No drugs tonight, but the handcuff was tighter. Tonight she had to fight him, or kill him, or whatever would look good for the cameras she now noticed in the room. There wasn't an inch of her that didn't hurt right now, so she didn't know what they expected.

She wasn't about to sleep through any of it though.

They'd suspected her hearing had come back to her quite some time ago, so had planned for tonight to be different. The Asset, bearing his usual dead stare and ready to comply, was given his orders in a separate building. He didn't blink when given tonight's parameters, but his eyes widened perceptibly.

"The lights will stay on throughout the experiment. You must lie on your back and watch for the camera above you to flash a red light. That will be your signal to begin."

The Asset suspected Two-Six had been given her own orders about tonight, and likely every night before this. He knew he was being pit against her in some way. Tonight's orders were distasteful, but he wasn't stupid to think they were all that Hydra had planned.

The confusing part of him he met in the museum could just barely be heard screaming.

So the doors opened. Two-Six sighed gently and shifted into a less painful position. The Asset walked to the bed, they both heard the bolts slide into place, and Two-Six shivered. He took his time looking her over as he approached the bed. She was holding herself strangely, like she was in pain or was feigning pain. He remembered the blood on her pants last night and assumed the cause of her pain.

He lay down on his back and watched the camera on the ceiling.

She went over her dream again and again, fitting fragments of it into chronological order and holding onto pieces that didn't fit.

His throat was dry, so he swallowed, keeping his eye on the camera even when she started coughing. The bed shook she coughed so hard, and the way she whimpered afterward made her pain sound genuine.

 _It was a color, like green or brown,_ she thought, _but was it on the floor or on the wall? Which side of the wall was I on?_

Out of habit he tested each of the fingers of his metal hand to ensure fluid movement. Two-Six moved her head slightly, to look at the wall. He wouldn't look away from the camera to see.

A red flash went off next to the lens and he fell into line. This time he grabbed her thigh with his flesh hand before reaching for her wrist with his metal one. No good, she was spooked when he entered the room, so now she slipped off the bed like before.

He was willing to wrench her back up, he had the strength to, but she'd hooked her two free limbs under the bed and was not letting go. Her shirt had ridden up, showing her stomach and ribs, dark red and purple from large bruises. He couldn't help but snort at how easy she was making this. Grabbing her pant leg by the ankle, he tugged and bared her thigh. Discernment dawned on her face. She scrabbled for the handcuff as he stepped down off the bed.

This all took place in the length of several seconds, but one of their onlookers yawned. "I was afraid it would be over too fast. Someone pass the kettle."

Two-Six groaned on the concrete floor. She'd finally wrenched the cuffs free from the bed, but not without further injury to herself. A stressful maneuver got the Asset to take a mouthful of her knee, but that just spurred him on. Now she had one knee between him and her body and one wrist in each hand. He still had more strength than her, if not naturally then just from the fact that her back and neck couldn't handle the strain. He was close to her face, breathing on her, staring at her. He was using the strength of his torso to try and force her knee out of the way, to crush her into submission somehow. He'd gotten her pants halfway off, bunched around her shins. The room was cold, her body was torture to look at, and she had tears welling in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said to him in Russian. "I don't want to do it."

That was too bad, rape was exactly what no one wanted. He leaned as close as he could, breath on her face as she strained against gravity and his arms. She was breathing with difficulty and he sensed a coughing fit on the horizon.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Gravity switched. She'd moved, twisted, something. He hadn't predicted it, reacted to correct it, but she had him on his left side against the leg of the bed.

Their audience gleefully recorded how clever she was though months ago they hated her unpredictability. Two-Six lifted the entire bed and brought it down on the Asset. He was protected by the mattress sliding off and covering his head, but the bed frame still crashed onto his legs.

Given a second's blessing, she pulled her pants back up then threw the bed into the door, lodging it in the small doorway as it was not seamlessly set into the wall. Throwing the mattress off, he lunged for her, but she caught the metal arm, elbowed him in the solar plexus, and wrapped both arms around his metal one.

He hit her in the crown with his free hand, but not before she twisted his metal elbow backwards with a metallic screech.

They stumbled apart, her into the wall where she held her head, him toward the door where he could assess what had happened to his main weapon. There was the slightest murmur among the researchers. Could count as a tie, but this was just her first trial. Don't split them up until there's a clear winner.

Decades spent with this arm meant the Asset knew all its sounds and movements. Even If he'd never seen inside it, he knew when something was broken. This wasn't broken. He watched her while trying to twist it back into place, and she watched him. She could've broken it, he saw that, just like he could've cracked her skull. Something had held him back again, hadn't it?

Holding one hand to her head, Two-Six braced against the wall. She was shaking. He felt shaky himself. He needed to follow through, needed to prove he still could. But the other him, the one the man had called Bucky…

She slid down the wall to crouch on the floor, never taking her eyes off him, rapidly playing the dream over and over in her head. In it she'd been able to walk through walls. Seemed strange, but you could do anything in a dream couldn't you? Except she'd had no control over this one, it just took her and happened to her, like what was happening now. The Asset was looking at her like he didn't understand either. God, he wasn't supposed to be here either how was she only now getting that?

With a frustrated growl he finally got his arm back in place and stalked toward her. In his head the plan was simple, hit her until she stopped fighting, hold her down, and complete the mission. They'd given him permission to do whatever he wanted short of maiming or killing her, but he wasn't feeling creative. He just wanted to get this over with.

The test subject, shaking and finally coughing, her face shining with tears and blood from an opened cut, stood up. He moved to strike her back down, but she ducked, got behind him somehow, and hit the base of his skull.

There was a flurry in the monitor room, pulses racing, commands issued. Guards armed with cattle prods were dispatched to the bedroom as quickly as possible. She'd gotten behind the Asset by phasing through him. It was too soon for her to know she could do that, she hadn't practiced it, hadn't been trained. Her memory must've brought it back, but they could still talk her down, neutralize her.

Two-Six forgot where she was for a long minute. Eventually, she turned her head to glance at the blocked door, the bed frame shaking as vile oaths squeezed around it. There was talk of tear gas. There was a lot of talk. She knew what it all meant now, their languages delicately forced into her brain. But words were easy to know. The Asset had no words while lying on his side in the corner.

The fact that neither individual had disabled the cameras was not lost on the research team silently jotting down notes on paper they'd eat later. Two-Six crouched over the Asset; watching him? waiting? She wasn't escaping. Undoubtedly she could, the drugs had been too weak or too easy to overcome. She could kill the guards in the hallway, could walk right out of the compound, could—

Why, wasn't, she, moving?

Movement in the Asset motivated her. Before he could revive fully, she grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him into her arms. With more speed than they would've hoped for, she pulled him through the wall and into the next room. The guards outside didn't notice immediately and the researchers scrambled for access to the next room's set of cameras. The screens buzzed free of one connection and flickered the next room to life.

Empty.

Each consecutive room, each hallway, training yard, gateway was empty of the two subjects. Sweat trickled down their spines, glasses fogged, breath became scarce. Some fled their posts to find someone _, anyone who can get them?_ _Now! Now!_

Klaxons whined around the compound, labs in lockdown, personnel in safe rooms.

"She can walk through walls, idiots, watch the fences!" shouted some officer in some room as his subordinates scrambled for the PA controls.

She didn't really just take the Asset with her, did she? This wasn't actually happening was it? Heads would roll in the bloody snow tonight.

Two-Six got them far, farther than the last camera, to the back entrance of a bunker nosing through the snow. She'd stolen things on her way; coats, boots, rations. Her timing for everything was impeccable, and they could only assume she'd been planning for months. Even once they were outside, there was no moon to spotlight them on a stage of thin snow.

The Asset had let her do all this, mostly because intangibly traveling through walls made him too dizzy to react. Hydra's mental grip on him made him follow her even after she let go, but he didn't get as far as subduing her. She stopped in the shadow of the bunker, coat and boots over her uniform, face bloodied from him hitting her. He couldn't think. He wanted to think, again, like he had in D.C. Then maybe this would feel like the river had.

"You won't come with me," she stated. "But don't stay."

They were standing very close in the shadow of the structure. He was wearing the clothes she'd stolen, pockets stuffed with rations. Didn't understand a damn bit of it.

She touched her knuckles to his chest which was heaving from the stress like she was trying to make it stop. Their breath fogged.

In American English, she said, "I'm sorry. You're more brain-fucked than I am. Just wanted to try."

Conflicting reactions rolled past each other in his head: to kill her, to subdue and return her, to complete his orders and fuck her here in the freezing cold…or to follow her to her destination and not look back.

She dropped her hand and looked him in the eye. Then she turned and walked off into the white forest.

* * *

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	6. Nine

Each hour he was free was a silent victory. He knew how much could change in an hour for him, a man who'd changed the lives of countless others in feeble minutes.

The direction Two-Six had chosen was, not ideal; it led to a thinly populated mining town well-known by Hydra. Her chances there were slender, and either the lethal cold or some other danger had already killed her. He'd pushed her out of his mind as soon as he could.

The route he chose was less direct, a crooked path north. The first few days he made excellent progress on foot, the bitter cold barely flagging him as he kept on the move night and day, stopping for an hour's sleep wherever a windbreak could be found. With limited manpower, Hydra would have to decide which fugitive to pursue, giving him a head start. From the way they handled Two-Six, he assumed she was the more valuable catch. And they'd catch him only to kill him anyway.

This didn't stop him from glancing over his shoulder wherever he went. They may yet prefer a ready-made assassin to their kidnapped wild card. He had to assume she was kidnapped. That cough wasn't gained voluntarily. _Stop thinking about it._

He crossed through Georgia into Turkey then got himself to the Black Sea. Took a job on a ship before letting it drop him further along the coast. Less likely to be caught on the water, but he didn't like the intimacy of a water vessel. The crew would get chatty, wanted to hear his stories, but mostly wanted to know where a face like his was from. He stayed on foot after that.

Some nights were harder to get through than others. Didn't matter where he laid his head or what kind of people slept nearby, parts of his subconscious would wake up leaving him terrified and sweating. Sometimes when he woke, his muscles ached from tension that had built up overnight. Other times he couldn't feel his body at all, like his mind had abandoned it entirely.

The sickest part of overcoming Hydra's control was realizing how much they'd protected him from his own emotions. Memories of assassinations, ambushes, and torture sessions were intruding like overzealous relatives. The past anguish of other humans liked to surprise him at any hour. It was hindering his life now and would've made him a liability in the field if they hadn't "redirected" him every time something sliced open his conscience.

Every hour beyond their grasp was still the greatest hour of his cognizant life, though he quickly understood how little he deserved it.

He stayed away from people unless he needed to hide among them, taking jobs that required little interaction with other humans. Most people he met reminded him of someone or someplace, and truly he wasn't ready to be seen as one of them. The compound may have been a brief chapter, but he hadn't been out of it long enough to forget what he did while in it.

At long last he got himself into Portugal, cheaply and without detection. The town, the building, and the research he'd stashed were all still there, and he finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. He'd imagined Hydra would somehow get there first and destroy it, or a war had broken out and the town demolished. Terrorism and civil unrest plagued several countries he'd crossed through to get here; neither scenario was impossible.

In the shabby rented back room of some bachelor's house, the papers shook in his hand. He held his journal open with his metal hand trying to read the words and failing. It all hurt too much, the things he'd saved to write down versus the disjointed sentences on the page. So little had trickled back to him in the weeks after D.C., that these recordings sounded childish. They were different than the things he'd been remembering lately, allusions to a life in America he barely remembered, one that felt like it happened to someone else long ago. An old man who had been young once, that's all James Barnes was to him. _Bucky_ was the present, someone known, someone whose name was spoken like he'd never ceased to exist.

It took one night under an electric bulb to write down as much as he could from the last eight months. He wanted to leave out what happened at the compound, but couldn't afford to lose the memories that episode had triggered. He was a machine on a leash when Hydra had him, but if there was a weak spot in his programming it was when they asked him to protect someone. Must've been purposeful on their part, to see how he'd react to his charge overpowering him.

 _Steve Rogers, he could kill you easily, you know. You let him lead you into a trap, didn't you? Stopped to believe in one individual hostile to the cause instead of Hydra as a whole._

He wasn't with Rogers, was as far from him as he could be. Didn't want either entity to find him, just wanted…just needed to hear his own thoughts for a change, if that's whose these were that he was writing down on the page.

From Portugal he turned around, paralleling his own tracks. Overnight, European newsstands and television screens were splashed with images of Sokovia's annihilated Novi Grad. He added a detour to his travels, and when the Avengers were duly credited with the destruction, he hunkered down in Slovenia until they'd moved on.

It had been nine weeks since he'd made the decision to run. 1518 hours.

Debilitating headaches—he hoped they were a natural part of his recovery and not a new issue—let him get as far as Vojvodina before he booked a hotel room and staggered into bed. Two days he slept without dreaming, his body past exhaustion, worn out by stress it had never encountered. He only awoke on the third day because he'd burned through his reserves.

Stepping into a real shower was a struggle—he bathed rarely and usually from a basin—because he expected the water pressure to be high and the temperature to be extreme. There were few traumatic memories associated with showers, but these aspects reminded him of Hydra and he didn't want a panic attack in a hotel shower. Apart from flinching at a moment's fluctuation in pressure, he did alright.

Leaving the hotel, he broke a soft rule and bought extra food, light enough not to burden him, but extra all the same. He ate as he walked and walked as he ate. If another two days or more were lost to stress sleep, he'd need some weight on him. Luckily, the main staples of the Balkans were meat, potatoes, and heavy breads. Alcohol too, but he needed a clear head to see the path ahead of him.

Serbia seemed…quiet. Yes, there was bustle; tourists and young Western travelers seemed to skid across the surface of the cities like ice skaters, seeing only the topcoat and feeling enlightened. There were business districts and trendy restaurants, factories that emptied workers each evening, a sports center lolling alongside a highway. But it all seemed calm to him. He doubted he himself was the calm one.

It was in a residential area that he searched for cover that evening, wondering if there might possibly be a sheltered alley or disused shed he could sleep in for the night. He'd bought food near here earlier in the day just to scope the area out, but evening conditions would affect his findings. The Romanian border was within a few hours walking distance, but he'd covered 133km since leaving the hotel, minus his stops for food, and his body was telling him two days rest had been too little. Hydra never pushed him this hard, or rather never let his body believe it was too hard, so this was all new to him. Once he was in Romania he'd give his body whatever it needed to recover.

Partway into a snowy neighborhood he'd traveled earlier, he stopped and ducked through an open gate. Across the street was a grocer run by a Romanian family. A customer had just stepped out with a single bag, weighed down by her evening dinner. The door swung shut behind her, the bell inside jingling mildly. Her demeanor was friendly and approachable even from here. As she walked further away, he stepped out and started to follow.

The roads were small, not originally intended for motor vehicles and only tensely used for two-way traffic today. They wound and split, and eventually he had to cross and follow her footsteps at a distance. He wanted to see her face. Ludicrous, he knew. Over the last three months he'd spotted multiple women of her height and complexion, some with American accents, others with languages she could've easily picked up. None of their faces were hers though. Sometimes it was their gait or their bone structure that turned him away, but so far this one was convincing.

Two-Six. That wasn't a name any more than "soldier" was his, but just "the woman" was no damn better. He'd already taken all the descriptions for her that Hydra had given him and thrown them out. Each one of them had been a lie in some way, and besides, once her mind had been marred like his she'd be a different person.

But this woman wasn't her. She found the homeless man, Srecko, and they knew each other. She took something out of her pocket, something wrapped in a dinar note, and handed it to him. Bucky looked away and scratched the back of his head. He lingered where he was until she'd moved on and Srecko walked his way. He waited until he was nearby to ask for a light.

"Eh, sorry, don't have one." Srecko wouldn't look him in the eye and kept moving.

Bucky turned down the street again in time to glimpse the woman quickly turning a corner out of sight. He'd been made. He hurried after her.

If he got to her alley or street in time, he'd catch a glimpse of her turning hastily onto the next one. Sometimes there were obstacles pushed into his way, sometimes she rounded a corner faster than seemed possible. Fatigue meant little to him now, though logic told him this was the stupidest way to spend his evening if it _wasn't_ her.

They were deep into the neighborhood now, and he glanced into every backyard and parked car in case she'd found a hiding place. He picked up speed in his search, hoping to catch sight of her again, hoping it wasn't just a stranger. There was a sharp corner, a tight squeeze between neighboring fences, but he made it through quickly.

She stood at the mouth of an alley where a metal and stone fence barred them both from the street. She'd let herself be cornered. He noticed her bag was missing until he saw it sitting on a stack of flattened cardboard boxes.

Silently, they studied each other until she finally arched a brow. More expression than he'd ever seen her exhibit.

"Are you alright?" he asked in English.

Her face clouded. "Speak Serbian. I just got used to it."

They were both breathing hard, but he adjusted his speech as she'd commanded. "How were you going to defend yourself in this corner?"

"Phase through the fence, come back around and beat your face into it. Then rob you."

Fair enough. Her bizarre advantages were preserving her after all. "You'd get yourself turned in doing that if it wasn't me."

"World's full of 'weirdoes.'" She didn't have the right word and improvised with English. "People think I'm a spirit."

Sure they would, too many genuflecting grandmothers who'd seen bloodshed from childhood onward spread ideas no generation could unfathom. He knew who'd ruled these borders and how often they'd been moved to include or exclude new graveyards; his clearer memories told him he'd helped move those borders and fill those graves. No one knew if the missing were dead, alive, or somewhere in between. Just like the two of them.

He gestured mildly at the stack of cardboard. "Get your groceries."

"What do you want?" She practically cut him off she asked so bluntly.

She'd been happier before she saw him. "Nothing."

The moment was too tense. A dog began to bark nearby and his heart rate picked up speed. Then she laughed once behind closed lips. "I'm not a trap if you aren't."

It may have been a joke, but she wouldn't move until he put his hands up where she could see them. As she reached for the grocery bag, she said, "Yeah, just don't hit me with your left one."

He exited the alley first and waited for her on the other side of the fence, keeping an eye out for anyone who might see her phase through. As they walked with her on the inside, he kept an eye on how loose or tight she gripped her groceries. At one point a group of young freeloaders made their way down the middle of the road smoking and shoving each other, and he heard more than saw her winding the plastic handles around her fist.

Once the pack had passed without incident, he asked, "Do men like that bother you?"

She brushed him off. "I just thought they might pick a fight with you."

Soon the sidewalk ended and there was only a strip of soggy grass between the road and the homes. He followed her lead as she picked over piles of dog crap and muddy wallows. When they reached a slightly wider road and her shoulders relaxed, he stopped.

She continued a few steps before looking back. "What's wrong?"

"Don't show me where you live."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure thing, brother. Keep following me."

"Really, I should go."

"Hey," her tone dropped, "if you turn out to be a problem, I'll just move tomorrow. Now come with me."

He stayed where he was. She exhaled through her nostrils and pointed at a dusky red apartment building. "I live on the second floor. Now come on. Come on."

She took him by the metal arm with a grip he found disconcerting; she could probably throw him farther than she trusted him. It was also the closest he'd let anyone get since their escape, barring a patient policeman who'd woken him during a street nap in Spain.

He managed to extricate himself from her before they got to the stairs, imagining multiple crosshairs aimed at various parts of his anatomy. She didn't seem to give a damn. She chuckled as she ascended the stairs.

"C'mon, brother, I promise it isn't scary. My dinner's getting cold."

Romania was so close.


	7. Benign (The Invitation)

Her apartment was small, even by mid-century European standards. The kitchenette and dining room were one room, the bedroom practically a closet, and the bathroom was out in the hall and shared by her neighbors. No windows, the door to the bedroom was missing, and despite the fact that it hugged the wall the twin bed itself took up most of that room.

She placed her bag on the little counter and pulled it down over her groceries, revealing them all at once. A bottle of juice she put in the small fridge and the rest she removed so she could fold the bag loosely and shove it into a cloth bag hanging on the back of the front door. The cloth bag seemed rather full of other plastic bags, telling him she'd been here a while.

Meaning they weren't after her anymore, if they ever were. Maybe Steve– maybe the Avengers had actually crippled Hydra beyond recognition. There was a Hydra site outside Novi Grad in Sokovia, operated by high officer Strucker. That couldn't be a coincidence. He'd been running too hard to think.

Think. He finally noticed what she was doing, splitting her food into two servings. He laughed cynically. Shook his head. Turned for the door. "You shouldn't have brought me here, this is…I'm going to go."

Gloved metal hand on the handle, he looked over his shoulder. She stood still, staring at the food and not registering him.

"What's going on?"

Oh, he wished she hadn't turned her head, the disappointment in her face was too clear. "Go, you probably should."

"What does that mean?" he gripped the door handle, almost afraid to turn it.

Her expression became confused. "Nothing's wrong. Nothing's going on. If you want to leave, you can. Just…stay safe."

Her voice was too soft, too gentle. Her movements as she started to put the food away seemed achingly slow. He licked his lower lip and pushed away from the door. "Wait…"

She noticeably stiffened as he came near her, the space so small he could reach out and touch her from this distance. He shrunk back. "We really shouldn't be in the same place at the same time."

"Why, were you followed?"

"No."

"Then we're fine." There was a bit of force behind this statement, but otherwise her tone and body language remained utterly passive; the way she was at the compound when they'd drugged her. She continued arranging their dinners, and he scanned the two rooms for places she could hide her stash, adding withdrawal symptoms to the list of things that should've killed her before she got this far. She kept him in the corner of her eye wherever he roamed, highly aware of the handgun lashed to the bottom of the countertop.

Relaxed to a point, he leant against the cluttered wooden table in the corner. One chair, filled with clothes, and a clean washcloth spread over her bed which he could see from here.

"You ran from me," he said. "Why'd you stop?"

When she spoke she took a page from Srecko and wouldn't look at him. "Thought you were here to take me back. Didn't know until you were facing me that you weren't."

He swallowed, eyeing the placement of her hands near a drawer she'd been blocking with her body since they arrived. "Then why aren't you facing me now? You're acting differently in here than you were out there."

Her gaze was cold and sharp as their eyes met. He'd been assuming everything backwards. She didn't bring him here to sacrifice him to Hydra, she'd brought him here to kill him herself. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he waited for her to make a move.

For her part, she stilled every muscle in her body, unwilling to discover what might set this version of him off. "Who am I? Do you know? Did they let you?"

The question feels like a slap, and he grips the edge of the table with his right hand.

"Then let me decide how I act when I'm in here." She holds a plate of food out to him. "You can push that crap off the chair; I just eat on the bed."

They sat in different rooms and ate silently while listening to the other chew. When he was finished, he got up carefully and made direct eye contact before taking his plastic plate to the sink and washing it himself. She came around the corner soon after with her own eating utensils. He offered to take them and she let him, lingering while he washed them, her hand pressed flat to the countertop.

Once he'd set aside the last utensil she put her hand out carefully, making eye contact with him like he had with her, and touched his elbow. She was on his left side, and he didn't know how comfortable he felt with her touching his prosthetic again. She tapped it through his coat.

"You haven't been able to fix it, have you?" Her expression remained neutral, her voice flat, but he knew she was concerned.

"Works fine," was all he felt like saying.

She lowered her hand, pressing her tongue to her teeth. "I'm…sorry."

"Why?"

She looked at their feet, not wanting to say. Pushing the compound to the back of her mind had been a challenge when those were the only memories she had.

He didn't press it, felt it better not to. It was getting late and he still needed a place to sleep. "Um, thank you. For- for supper."

"You're welcome." Tongue pressed to teeth again. Apparently she did that when she had something to say and didn't want to say it. "Thank you for coming up here. Sorry it stressed you out."

He clenched his jaw and looked around her living space then back at her. "Stressed me out?"

He knocked on the counter, next to her hand. Her lips parted, but nothing came out, and he wasn't waiting for anything anymore. Heading for the door, he wasn't surprised when a peep finally did come out of her.

"Hey, you…you don't have a place to sleep tonight, do you?"

Frowning, he gave her a look. She looked sideways, the direction of her bedroom. His look darkened and he pursed his lips.

"What, like we haven't been there before?" she asked. "I didn't sleep in the snow for eight nights just to turn you away the second I get the chance. Put your pack down; bathroom's out in the hall."

"I'm not sleeping with you."

"Then sleep on the floor, though I wouldn't advise it. Bugs run across you, and the carpet stinks."

"I _can't_ stay here."

"Then where will you stay? Stay here. It is safe here, safe to lay down your head. Please."

Frustrated, but with no other options, he yanked off his pack and set it by the door. "You shouldn't stay here either. You've been here too long, they'll locate you."

She held her finger to her lips and furrowed her brow as the neighbor's door was unlocked and opened. "I know, I'll be leaving soon. Have a job, don't want to quit it just yet."

He followed her to the bedroom where she indicated a hook to hang up his coat and cap. He tucked his hands into his back pockets and looked away while she took off her own outer layers, feeling more and more like he shouldn't be here. They each brushed their teeth in the kitchen sink and he risked leaving his belongings with her for a trip to the bathroom.

Then she folded herself onto the bed, seated upright, the wall lamp above her casting a warm glow. He sat at the foot of the bed, disliking how small it was.

Finally he blurted. "Why in hell would you want me in bed with you again?"

She paused before turning off the lamp. "It's just sleep. I slept well when you were in the room."

He makes a face at her like maybe they succeeded in destroying her cognitive abilities. "You can't be serious. You really shouldn't trust me."

"I am serious, and I don't trust you," she said plainly. "Why did you chase me today?"

Impulse, he'd thought. "I wanted to see if it was you."

"Why?"

"Because I thought you'd died, and I wanted…wanted to know you were free." This hurt him to say. He didn't like that he'd just revealed that to her.

She pulled her hands into her sleeves and pinched the cuffs closed. "You never thought maybe I feel responsible for you? After leaving you where I did in...in that state? Figured I'd just gotten you killed. I was glad to see I hadn't killed you."

He stared at her with his mouth open. "You should have killed me, you had every right to. I don't deserve your food or your bed, _myshka_."

She squinted. "I don't know that last word."

"It's—just forget it."

"Little, mouse? I've thrown you into a wall." Contemplating this gave her a surprise fit of giggles. He shook his head in a small way and almost smiled.

"I'm going to sleep," she said, still smiling, her eyelids heavy. "You look exhausted."

As soon as he'd sat down to eat his whole body had dreaded getting back up. Now on the bed, he was struggling not to lie down. "Why did you rescue me?"

"You looked like you needed rescuing? I couldn't just leave you there."

That didn't sound right. "I saw what they were pouring into you; they wanted you nearly catatonic while I hurt you. There's no way you could've overcome that enough to fight me. There's no way you should've thought to save me too."

"I agree." She yawned, pulled back the covers and climbed in. "It would be nice to have it all explained to me. Can you turn out the light? I have work in the morning."

Anxiety settled into a small crevice in his psyche as leaned over her to get the light. He examined her briefly as though that would give him some clue. It really wasn't his business, and it was better if they knew less about each other. Still. "Will your income be enough to keep you here until you're ready to leave?"

There was a hesitation where she narrowed her eyes in thought. "No, I'm not a prostitute."

He hid his relief and turned out the light. Would've been an unwise occupation anyway, men always talked about the local sex workers. She'd have been found easily.

"Yes, I am financially comfortable," she said. Used the word the wrong way, but he knew what she meant. He corrected her.

"Uh-huh." She turned onto her side facing the wall. "What else have I been saying wrong?"

He pushed off his shoes and removed his belt, listing words and tenses she'd misspoken. She tried to repeat a few of his corrections, but got overwhelmed. "I can't remember all those tonight. Tell me again tomorrow or something."

He corrected that too. He was lying down behind her, facing her so he could sleep on his right side, but doing his best to keep space between them. "And in Romanian you'd say _suc de fructe_."

She shifted. "You followed me into the shop?"

"No, I was there earlier today."

She was quiet for a few seconds. "I don't like the son, he asks too many questions. I try to go in when it's the father or sister."

"What kinds of questions, is he suspicious?"

"No," she snorted. "The 'I want to fuck you' kind of questions. He's why I'm moving, I think he's trying to figure out where I live."

Bucky knew the man she was talking about, but had no opinion of him. Mid-thirties, tall, average build, paunch, thin beard, bored look in his eyes. Eyes that were drifting toward a woman who could crush his hands if they touched her. He had to smile at that, looking where she laid in the darkness.

"What should I call you?" she asked.

"Nothing, we don't know each other."

"But when it's just the two of us."

"Doesn't matter."

"Hm." She was quiet for a second. "I picked Sabrina because I read it in a magazine. Everyone still knows it's fake, but I don't know my real one. Wouldn't use it anyway. You don't have a name either I bet."

He sucked on his lower lip and closed his eyes.

"Sorry. They were usually yelling at me too much to—sorry." She hunched her shoulders, feeling sick just thinking about the compound. "Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?"

"Nothing. I'm- uh, nothing." Apologizing to herself out loud helped. When she hurt herself by accident, when she made a mistake, or when she thought about the compound, she owed herself an apology. "Good night."

"Good night."

This close he could actually smell her, not the sanitized object Hydra had always placed next to him, but a real human smell. It made him oddly uncomfortable. It made her separate from him, and here he was taking her space and making her speak. She actually had a life somewhere, she just needed to find it or let it find her.

He waited for the familiarity of her breathing patterns to tell him when she was asleep, then he carefully exited the bed. After putting his clothes back on, he pulled out a variety of monies from his coat pockets and tucked them under the books on the table.

The street wasn't as cold as he'd expected it to be. An unusually warm wind blew his hair into his face as he walked along the grass strip. Climate was changing in Europe, a place he still felt like he'd always known. Brought here on a ship to fight, die, and be reborn. Every time they woke him up, Europe was a little different and he was less the same.

Someone jumped out in front of him. _"Hey!"_

He nearly hit her. Swearing under his breath, he stepped backward. "What the hell?"

"You don't just leave like that; I thought something had happened to you."

"Keep your voice down," he hissed.

"I thought I would be next, jerk." Her voice was low and she was fighting to keep a mild tone. "I thought you knew something I didn't—I almost packed and ran."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then why did you _leave_? I already thought you'd leave by morning, I was fine with that, but you just snuck off, what the hell for?" Her Serbian and her English were mixing clumsily.

He touched his tongue to his lips. "We're better off apart. You have your life to find, I'll just get in the way of that."

"Fuck no," pure American there, "don't leave me alone in the middle of the night. And what makes you think I have a life waiting for me? You know less than I do about that."

Her hand reached between them and bumped his chest. "Take it."

"What- no, no, keep that." It was the roll of money he'd left. "Keep it, I don't need it."

"Well, I don't want it." She stuffed it into his coat pocket. "How dangerous can it be for you to stay one night, eh? Hydra is dead and we're in the middle of Euro-nowhere. Now you can come back with me and get a _full_ night's sleep, or I can follow you and talk your ear off until someone notices us."

"Cut it out, shh, okay." He took her by the arm and led her back to the apartment himself. When they were back in her room with the light on, he tugged her arm. "Don't follow me like that again."

"Boo-hoo, you chased me earlier today and made me think you were going to kill me."

He bit his tongue and she raised her eyebrows and got back in bed. He set his pack down, undressed as before, and lied down behind her just like before. She was breathing a little harder, from anger and from chasing him, but he wasn't going to leave again.

Instead he collapsed into sleep.


	8. Benign (The Lesson)

**FIXED! Sorry, the wrong doc was uploaded and I didn't catch it for far too long — 12/27/19**

* * *

When he didn't wake up in time to see her off, she snuck over to his pack with a carefully wrapped bag of snacks, just in case he left while she was gone. A quick peek inside showed he already had plenty of food, even for a sturdy guy like him. She saw the journal too with its dog-eared pages, and quickly zipped the pack up and left for work. Her foot had just touched pavement when it occurred to her she might remove, or at least unload the gun she'd left behind so it wouldn't be aimed at her when she returned.

The soldier was still asleep when she came home, making her wonder just how far he'd traveled to get here. Had he taken some detour, or been chased out of his last hiding place? There was no way she could have "beat" him here if they'd followed the same route, and she'd been in this dump for at least a month.

Sounded stupid when she thought about it, how long she'd been in one place. No one had pursued her anywhere except common thugs and probable traffickers. They'd been easy enough to lose, and the one man who had gotten ahold of her wasn't looking for a fight when she hit him harder than he'd hit her. Hydra would've put more effort into it.

She set tonight's dinner on the counter and the glass jar of sauce clunked against the plastic surface. She waited, listening as the bed creaked then as his metal arm was the first joint to be tested out, the plates recalibrating. She gave him a second to figure out where he was before she started moving again.

Dinner was always as easy as she could get it. Ready-made suited her, especially from the small, family-run joints she could find in the surrounding neighborhoods. But a jar of pasta sauce had caught her eye a few days ago, enticing her to pour it over something. Didn't before because she didn't like storing open food overnight in the old fridge that was barely cold, and didn't want to throw anything away while money was slender. But now there were two of them—at least, she'd hoped there'd be when buying it—so it wouldn't go to waste.

He put his shoes on, but left the rest of his clothes. She looked at him sideways, curiously, as he came out of the bedroom. The dining chair had been moved against the wall behind her and her things were once more upon it, so there was a narrow space between it and the kitchenette. If he wanted to get to the bathroom in the hall he'd need to squeeze past her.

Touching her side lightly as he moved behind her, he found she'd put on weight. Good. She'd been too light before, and that's why her strength kept taking him by surprise. Hadn't expected it from a creature he could barely see sideways on. They must've fed her a fourth of what they fed him.

She turned her head to look him in the face, brow raised slightly. He'd left his hand on her side and stopped completely. He withdrew quickly, brushing it off with a headshake and a shrug, getting her to smile before they both returned to what they'd been doing.

The meal was unexciting, but he wasn't used to sharing his mealtime with other people so…it was new. They didn't talk much until she remembered he'd been improving her Serbian. In the interrogation room, it had seemed like they were drilling her on a dizzying number of languages at once, but in reality it had only been three.

"They were useful for bluffing my way through Turkey though," she admitted.

"When were you in Turkey?" he wondered aloud.

She gave him some dates and he huffed. "We were paralleling each other then."

She found this funny for some reason and laughed gently. "Why did they teach me to speak those?"

"Orders." His food caught in his throat and he struggled to swallow it down. "They were, preparing you for future, handlers. Elsewhere."

"Oh," she said, barely above a whisper.

They cleaned up the dinner plates and he eyed his pack by the door when she wasn't looking. He needed to get going, hadn't intended on sleeping through another day. Then he thought about the grocer with the wandering eyes and gave her a look of his own.

Two-Six, or Sabrina, or whatever her name was had pale brown skin and strong, handsome features. She didn't look American, to her advantage, but she didn't fit in perfectly in the Balkans either. He didn't know what passed for attractive these days, she didn't have much of a figure to hide under her heavy coat, but she didn't look her strength and that was primarily what mattered. If the drugs and regular beatings hadn't dimmed her any, she was still smart enough to get away from a predator on her own.

Turning his head away from her he winced, remembering how blotchy and bruised she was on the night they escaped, remembering how he'd assumed it would make her easier to subdue if she was weak. She'd had a cut lip and a swollen ring around her eye, she shook when she breathed, every movement must've been torture. They hadn't put her in there like that as an experiment, as a means of honing his or her skills. They'd just wanted to watch her suffer and submit.

"How do you say this in Romanian?" she asked, derailing his train of thought and holding up a food item. "She told me in the store, but I didn't quite catch it."

He told her and she repeated it back to him correctly with a satisfied nod.

"And what about this?"

" _Sos_."

She gave him a flat look and put the jar in the fridge. "That should be easy to remember. Romanian sounds very familiar, like, I know it but I don't _know_ it."

He chuckled, knowing exactly what she meant. "Maybe you know one of the other romance languages. And that's not the correct term for 'familiar,' I told you that last night."

She cocked her head to the side. "Okay, well, then how do you say 'music'? Or 'dancing,' how do you say dancing?"

"…you've been dancing?"

"Noo, no, I can't dance." She brushed her hair out of her face. "It came up in conversation with a coworker and I didn't know how to say it."

A coworker that wanted to take her dancing perhaps? "In Romanian or Serbian?"

"It, doesn't matter really."

"Hm." He sucked in his lip then said quietly, "You don't know how to dance."

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and turned toward the table. "Forget it, brother."

"No, come back here, I'll show you how to say it."

"Nuh-uh, I don't trust you—"

He took her loosely by the arm and pulled her to him, feigning that he was going to dance with her, even spreading his feet apart and putting one hand on her waist. This behavior didn't surprise him. He'd figured out a while ago that James Barnes must've been one smooth-talking G.I. He'd find himself chatting up old ladies in marketplaces and entertaining shy looks from young girls. Female attention felt familiar. So did dancing.

" _Dans,"_ he said, ignoring the grim line her mouth made and focusing instead on the smile hiding in her eyes, "and in Serbian, _данце._ That's how you say dance. _"_

"Danzig? I know them." She said in jokey American. "Please, brother, you just said 'dance' three times, don't try to fool me."

He held back a laugh, but couldn't suppress a grin. "Then practice saying them separately; a native speaker can tell when you're improvising."

She sighed and said in English, "Dance."

" _Dans_."

"Danz."

"No, _dans."_

She smiled, repeating the word again and again, watching his lips and adjusting her pronunciation. All the while he held her in place like they were going to begin a waltz in the little, threadbare apartment. Her hand lifted hesitantly, her thoughts focused elsewhere, before she touched his collar and kissed him. Soft, shallow kisses that he didn't move to stop. Wanted to, but forgot how.

It was over in a moment. She dropped her hands and pulled away, trying to look at something other than him. It had been meaningless in her head, just watching his lips, liking them, wanting to touch them. Liking that they were his and the way his voice sounded. But she didn't know why her first instinct was to kiss him or why she'd acted on it so easily.

"Don't think about it," she muttered. "I, almost hugged a man at a café the other day."

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and mumbled something about going to the bathroom. He waited until she was gone to let out his held breath, when something on her table caught his eye. He hadn't noticed it before, maybe there had been something on top of it last night, maybe he hadn't yet faced that way today. It was a journal with flowers and some cheeky saying badly translated into French on the cover. He knew better than to touch it.

So, he opened it, skimmed the inky pages. She didn't write in hers, she drew. They weren't good, or at least he couldn't understand what was happening in them. Each page looked like a ballpoint pen had gruesomely murdered something and occasionally left footnotes to mark the incriminating evidence. One footnote was simply an arrow pointing to a blank section of a drawing with the English word _purple._ Another footnote just said _patriotic bullshit_ , but didn't indicate which part of the piece it meant.

When she came back through the door the journal was placed exactly where it had been at the angle it had been, and he was sitting on the bed re-lacing his shoes. She wanted to go to it, put something down before she forgot, but she didn't want to be noticed doing it. Not sure why. Just didn't want him to see since he had one too. Maybe that was exactly why she should.

He pretended not to notice when she picked it up, but watched out of the corner of his eye. She watched him too before sitting in the chair and retrieving a pen from the table. He listened to her scratch away for a while before setting his shoes down and heading to his pack. She shifted in her seat when he walked by, and he assumed she was hiding her work from him.

"Hey, are you leaving?"

He paused by his pack. "If you want me to. I've lost too much time today and would rather leave tomorrow."

She'd brought him dinner today, he certainly didn't feel unwelcome. It was the nightmares that worried him. He hadn't had a violent flashback in a couple weeks, but he'd have to be careful not to have one in her presence.

She felt a bit of relief that he'd decided to stay. When he passed by her again holding his journal this time, she also felt mildly triumphant. Now to just wait for the right minute to ask any of the questions ricocheting inside her head.

"Your cough's gone," he noted out loud as he settled onto the bed and opened his book.

"Yes. It attracted too much attention, glad it's gone." She looked over at him hopefully, wanting the conversation to continue. "How are you?"

He looked at the empty pages in his lap and slapped the book shut. "Do you remember how you got there?"

This took her a while. "No. I woke up tied to a chair."

"But you remember things about your life before that?"

She looked down at her journal, drawing a long, curved line on the page. "A little."

Both became silent when the neighbor could be heard returning home with a friend. For several seconds, they listened to the muted conversation going on in the next room.

"I didn't expect to make it this far," she said eventually. "You didn't expect me to either, did you?"

Bucky tried not to give it away, but she'd caught him.

"I just knew things though, so I guess I've done this before?" She wrote something in her book. "I just don't have a set direction to go in. Do you, can I ask?"

Put on the spot, he shifted on the bed. Why couldn't he tell her? She'd freed him, brought him to her home, and so far nothing bad had happened to either of them. This was a dangerous comfort zone he was settling into.

Reading his silence, she moved on. "I want to head West, given my accent. There must be someone in the States who can tell me who I am."

"Don't go to the States," he said abruptly, shaking his head. "It'll be difficult, but go east, if you can, you'll blend in better."

Her brows popped. "What, an American English speaker?"

"So pick up a new accent, whatever it takes."

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't want to go east. I'm American, I should go to America."

"Then they'll be expecting you, plus you don't know why you weren't in America to begin with. Your metabolism means they had to have drugged you near enough to the compound to get you there before you came to. They didn't use air travel."

She blinked when he mentioned metabolism. That explained the constant injections and why she'd always felt so lethargic. They'd been drastically underfeeding her. "But they could've. I could've been flown in from anywhere and kept dosed along the way."

Bucky pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, counting to calm himself. "No nearby airstrip, no decent landing spot. The compound they put you in was a crap hole, that's why our escape was so easy. There are better facilities they should've taken you to to avoid that, but they were rushed."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was diverted there suddenly, and if _I_ know it was a crap hole why else would they send me there but to counter you? I wasn't there for my health." He clenched his jaw and sat back on the bed. She really had no idea how much danger they were in. "Look, they may be weakened, but they still have eyes everywhere."

"No, they don't," she replied with a frankness that stunned him. "Trial dates for the last living officers have been set, and the media's run out of fresh ink on Hydra. The Avengers cleaned out the last of them, even the place we were kept in was demolished after we left."

This grabbed his attention. "How do you know that?"

"I looked it up," she admitted resignedly. "Borrowed a device, used a relay. There are images and everything."

She had said a lot of things, but he found this the hardest to believe. Steve had been that close to finding him? Pulse quickening, he got up and paced the increasingly claustrophobic apartment. Immediately he knew he was worrying her, when she went still it meant he was worrying her, meant her eyes traveled to the countertop where she had a weapon stashed. At the thought of her lunging for it, he stopped pacing and sat on the floor. One less person fearing him was what he needed right now, especially if it was her.

"You couldn't have escaped a day sooner," he said in a tight voice.

She leaned out of her seat. "Why, did I mess up? Should the Avengers have found us? I thought they'd have grouped us in with the rest—"

"No, you…things would've gotten worse for you if you'd stayed."

Of the steadily filling sea of his recalled atrocities, rape had _never_ been a mission requirement. It had never even been a form of torture he'd been taught to employ. Her rape was meant to humiliate them both. It likely wouldn't have been his last.

"Okay." She'd set down her book and was now kneeling very close to him. "You're thinking too much. Stop letting them live in your head. They don't own it anymore."

When she touched the side of his unshaven face a muscle spasmed, but otherwise he didn't flinch. He may have wanted to be left alone by the world, but she was allowed to hit him as hard as she liked. She swallowed to clear her throat.

"You're better than this. They're dead now. You won."

Her delivery was rough, bitter. What had he won? Was that all that mattered, more deaths? What did that solve? Then she burst into tears.

Withdrawing her hand, she covered her face and wept into her palms, muffling broken sobs. Shutting up his thoughts, he gave in to instinct and held her, the backs of her hands pressed to his natural shoulder.

"Do you know why they hated you?" he asked. "Do you remember anything about how they caught you?"

"They killed my mom," she got out between sobs, "I dreamt about it that one night. I don't know why they killed her, I don't know. I don't know anything."

He gritted his teeth, having hoped not to hear this kind of thing, especially on the subject of family. Last time he had seen his was before he'd shipped off. There were no emotions attached to these memories, but he wanted to keep James' feelings about things at bay for as long as he could.

She was still crying into his shoulder, no longer caring if touching him was too intimate. He could leave whenever he felt like it, she knew that. But being alone in this knothole of an apartment in a strange country made her manic.

 _"Myshka…"_ he said, trailing off, hoping she'd supply more information.

Maybe it was a way of entrapping her, she thought, but they wouldn't send a brute to do that. He wouldn't hide money in her things if he wasn't free of those creatures. "I- I was adopted, I think. All my memories are of her, no father, no siblings, not even cousins. She was white, blonde, shorter than me. I think…I think we were all each other h-had."

She sniffled into her hands, grateful that he hadn't pushed her away yet. "But, yes, you're right. Hydra hated me. I hated them, and I must've done something to them, something I still can't remember, because they ruined our lives. Mom lost her job, her house, her relationships. She became depressed a-and anxious, and I remember staying home from work to take care of her on bad days, and… _god_. God, I hate remembering."

Bucky didn't like being so close to her grief knowing it may be contagious, but strangely he wanted to keep holding her. There was small comfort in knowing he wasn't responsible for this one. "They made it look like a suicide, right?"

She pulled away from him so quickly he bit down on his lips to keep from speaking again. "How did you know that?"

He had the sudden urge to become like her and phase through the floor, to just keep falling until the center of the Earth burnt him up. "It's a common Hydra tactic. I'm sorry."

"See, I remember her saying she'd never do that, that she had me to live for. So, I think…I think when I saw her, lying there—" her voice broke and she had to swallow several times. "I think I didn't know it was all Hydra until that point. Life was just hard, but then she killed herself, something my mom would never do ever. And next thing I remember, I'm…at the place. With you."

Something heavy dropped next door and both of them jumped. They waited, breathless. His eyes searched for the window until he remembered she had none.

Nothing happened of course.

They took turns going to the shower. When he returned with his hair frazzled around his face, she wanted to comb it back for him, but instead gripped her hands into fists and tucked them under her arms. Bedtime arrived and he was still very hesitant about climbing in behind her. He kept his metal arm pressed to his side as he stayed awake and thought about all she'd told him, too wired to actually sleep. Hours passed in the darkened room until he heard the tinny alarm on her wristwatch.

Before she could rise, he gently grasped her arm. "How soon can you move out of this place?"


	9. Benign (The Plan)

Over the next two days, he stuck around. She began settling things at her job and with her landlord while he hiked to different neighborhoods to find work to pay for his meals. They met at home, ate, discussed, and continued their awkward dance around physical contact; both needing it, neither willing to impose on the other to get it.

That and she'd grown uneasy around him. Sure, he'd been kind so far, protective even, but what man couldn't pretend the same? He was an experienced killer, a catalog of psychoses, wouldn't give her a name, and just look at that vicious arm with that fucking star on it. Either he'd chosen the emblem himself or the arm came like that, neither of which settled her stomach.

The Plan came from his increasingly itchy feet. He wanted to hide out in Romania and have her join him there. They'd travel separately, but meet up at three locations along the way. Even she felt that was too dangerous.

By day four she still wasn't sure about him, but every day he brought in a small income and gave it directly to her. She didn't like taking it. He acted like he owed her a debt and it made her uncomfortable until finally she said,

"Hey, you know you don't owe me anything. I didn't expect anything when I brought you out of there."

Bucky looked her in the eye as she folded today's small change in her palm, and swallowed. "I'd gotten away before, was free from them for months. Then I got cornered, ambushed, and they took…they took me and started over. Thought I was finished, that they'd put me back under, but then you did _that_ …"

She licked her lower lip and put the money away. "What does 'put me back under' mean? I didn't understand."

In hushed English, he pushed himself through an explanation of Hydra's routine of wiping his mind after preserving him in cryostasis. She sucked her breath in sharply and glared at him like he'd just said something obscene about her mother.

"That didn't happen. They could do that? No, that…you made that up."

He set his jaw, feeling an ache in the back of his skull just thinking about the machine. "I've never lied to you. Sometimes I just don't answer your questions, but I haven't lied. I don't think you have either."

They kept eye contact until she had to look away and wipe any trace of tears. Naturally, she didn't want to believe anything he'd just said, either that escape once wasn't escape forever or that Hydra had the ability to destroy one's life more than they'd already destroyed hers.

"They never did that to me," she said, not accusingly, but softly. "Not that I remember."

"You'd remember. You said you woke up in a chair? Was it part of a machine?"

"No, just a…a chair. Bolted to the floor." She started opening food containers and setting up plates, but her mind was duly distracted. "I'm sorry."

There was a small sigh from behind her, but she couldn't tell if it accepted her apology or was further upset by it. After a moment she nearly jumped when he touched her right side with his hand and then her left with his prosthetic. The touch was feather light, but the knowledge that he had her blocked against the counter concerned her. Either she was in danger from him or from something he'd noticed.

When he rested his forehead on her left shoulder she relaxed. He wasn't threatening her or seeking affection, he was showing her that he trusted her. That's how she wanted to read it, anyway. She finished setting up their dinner at which point she pressed her palm to his natural hand and he backed off.

Bucky didn't yet know how to process the emotions stirred by her not phasing away. He would've held tighter if he hadn't been afraid of triggering her flight instinct, knowing he unnerved her. He had told her not to trust him after all.

After dinner, they sat on the bed and talked more about her past as she went over her drawings, deciphering them for him. He theorized over a few, giving her new ideas as to what the memories could mean or where she might've been at the time. She kept looking at him with a question in her eyes and he tried to ignore it, hiding his journal under his hip. Maybe in Romania he'd tell her about Steve and the river.

In bed that night, she turned over to face him in the dark. His muscles tensed when she brushed her knuckles a little below his chest.

"What if…what if one of us…what if _I_ remember something before I get to Romania? What if I remember where I need to be or that I _am_ in trouble from something other than Hydra? Should I still come to you?"

Her voice was soft and slow as always, but the edge to it had him readjusting his posture to take her hand in his natural one. "If that happens, tell me as soon as you can. I don't want to hold you back from going home, _myshka_ ; but if you're in danger, come find me."

She trembled slightly at that, biting her lip. Considering her own strength, she carefully squeezed his hand and had hers squeezed in return.

Three more days. The thought made them smile at each other in the lamplight as she dressed for work and he put together their breakfast. Three more days and they'd ditch this place and head for the border. Two more after that, they'd be together in Bucharest. He couldn't tell her why Bucharest, or Romania at all because he didn't know why himself. For now he told himself it was because he knew the language, the people, and the hiding places. It was both nowhere and somewhere enough to get lost in a crowd that would never be searched. It was also diverse enough for them both to blend in, and by the time they arrived she'd have a good enough grasp on the language to take care of herself.

She too was proudly preparing for this, thanking whatever teacher had taught her Spanish or Italian to make Romanian feel natural on her tongue. She practiced it with the sister of the Romanian family at the grocery store that evening. Then the brother, Alex, appeared from the storage room.

He smiled at her. "Good day?"

"It was," she replied tonelessly in Serbian. Paying for her items, she left the store, bells jingling over the door. It hadn't swung shut all the way when they violently rung again.

"You're here by yourself a lot. Need someone to walk you home?"

She skidded to a stop, looking over her shoulder at Alex standing in the open door. "No, I'll be fine…my cousin meets me halfway anyway, he works nearby."

"Well, that's still too far for you to be walking alone, girl. I'll walk with you."

"I'll be fine," she repeated coolly. He nodded, like he'd heard her, but nonetheless he walked toward her. She wasn't about to forget how he knew halfway was "far" meaning he may have already followed her home once.

He kept his speed steady until he was just ahead of her then slowed when there was nothing she could do but catch up. She took a few reluctant steps forward and threw her hands up. "Oh, wait I forgot my dessert."

Turning on her heel, she jogged back to the shop and made sure to go down each aisle before reaching the candy shelf. Alex came in through the door with a jangle. She crouched by the rack of snacks even as he came to stand next to her for a while before returning to the counter and addressing his sister. How long should she stall before the soldier knew something was wrong? Would he leave? Come find her? Wait up through the night?

She laughed at that thought, pretending it was because of something on one of the packages she was inspecting. She studied every snack and candy bar, even the stuff marketed primarily to kids, then started from the top and studied them all again. Eventually, she hoped, another customer might come in and distract Alex so she could make her escape.

But none came, and she was running out of excuses to be there. Remembering what she said about her "cousin," she grabbed two candy bars and headed to the counter where the sister rang her up. From the look in her eyes, his sister knew something was wrong, but was unwilling to get involved. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was willful ignorance.

"Ready now?" Alex piped, appearing out of nowhere.

"Ready for what? You aren't coming with me."

"Come on, I won't hear it." He held the door open for her as she stood on the plastic mat before the threshold. "It's gotten dark now, you really shouldn't walk alone."

She pushed her tongue into her cheek, giving him a death stare that only deflected off his obstinate smile. Stiffly, she stepped out the door. Mechanically, she walked home, this time avoiding alleys and putting parked cars between him and her whenever she could. The route was indirect, longer, but if he knew he said nothing. He didn't speak to her at all in fact, but the hairs on her neck were raised from knowing he was watching her at all times. Hitting him with her fist would cause a struggle and might give away her strength, but she was willing to risk that. She wound the bag handle around her fist, wishing that she'd thought to buy something with heft.

"So where does your cousin usually meet you?" Alex asked in an aggravating tone. He knew she'd been bluffing, that she lived alone, and she kicked herself for frequenting the same store so often. Ironically, she went to that one because it wasn't as shady as the few others nearby. Better to have Alex follow her home than whatever she might pick up in those parts.

"Oh, we're not there yet," she deliberated. "If you're tired I can walk the rest of the way on my own and you can close up shop with your sister."

"Nah, she's fine. I'll walk with you until he shows up." With that he stepped a good deal closer and she felt her skin start to crawl. She eyed an upcoming alley that she might dodge into—or that he might try to push her into—and weighed the possibility of neatly phasing away from him in the growing darkness.

"Sabrina!"

She whipped her head in the direction of the speaker, truthfully forgetting it was her alias, but anxious for any distraction. A figure jogged toward them from further down the street, his silhouette coming into focus and washing her with relief.

"Hey, brother," she greeted. "You're late."

"I know, I know," he flashed them a completely uncharacteristic smile, and she stepped a bit quickly to get him between her and Alex.

"I was just walking her home," said Alex with forced casualness. "You her cousin?"

"Yes," they both said at once, and he shook Alex's left hand. She could tell from the startled grunt on Alex's part that her roommate had not been gentle.

"Thanks, she gets into trouble when she's on her own." The soldier's tone sounded double-edged. "You work at the little shop up the way, yes?"

Alex cleared his throat and nodded, freeing his hand as soon as he could.

"Might come by to say hi then." Double-edged again. "You have a good night."

As each party turned to walk away, the soldier draped his right arm heavily across her shoulders and said in her ear, "We leave tonight."

"Yep."

They packed quickly. Dinner was eaten while they put on as many layers as they could. Her heart beat fast when she realized Alex had gotten a good look at the soldier, knowing it was a face he wouldn't soon forget. Might be better if they split up permanently after all. She moved to stuff the last plastic bag in the cloth one behind the door when something with weight shifted inside.

"Oh, here." She fished out the chocolate bars and handed one to him. "I got you candy."

He took it without ceremony and slipped it into a coat pocket. "You were stalling. Sorry."

She already had her chocolate bar stuck between her teeth, so she made a non-committal grunt.

In a few more minutes they were by the door ready to go.

"Hey, hey," she tapped his natural shoulder so he'd turn then pulled him into a tight hug. He reciprocated gladly and dreaded its ending. Pulling away, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and crooked a brow. "For luck?"

"Sure," he chuckled, "luck."

The moon was high, but sporadically obscured by traveling clouds. They split up at the landing, her leaving from the front of the building onto the street, him circling around to descend the stairs in the back. He headed east, she headed south; both praying the other would beat them to the rendezvous.

* * *

 **Please. Leave a comment.**

 **I know a couple people like this story, but I have no idea why. Running out of motivation to update, and have several other projects more people care about that I should work on instead.**

 **If you wish to see an update soon, please leave comments!**


	10. Homecoming

The bus station seemed far too warm for being in a town that still had snow on the ground. She worried the ticket inside her pocket. They'd see each other at the next stop, but they wouldn't acknowledge each other. It was enough to know the other had made it that far without them. Then at the next junction, a church parking lot in Deta, they'd act like old friends. He intended to have a temporary vehicle by then, they'd get something to eat, and then park at the next station and buy bus tickets to opposite cities. Eventually, they'd meet in Bucharest.

It felt needlessly elaborate, but she reasoned he had more to run from than she did. At any point she could back out with no explanation. At any point she could turn to him and say, "You know something funny? I really don't know you at all, yet I'm following you where you tell me to follow. Don't you think that's strange?"

Red flags were popping up in her head, feelings she had no context for, but trusted anyway. There was a man waiting for her at the end of this road. He'd been in her bed, in her house, and she knew the force of his fist. She was taking herself straight to him like it was the best decision in the world. Why? Why? Why?

Stifling a gasp, she hopped out of line and onto the nearest bench, gripping the backrest as her heart raced in her chest. Breathing came in difficult, sharp pants. She needed to scream, so she ground her teeth instead.

Moments later a woman younger than herself released her hand and patted her shoulder gently, asking her in Serbian if she was going to be alright? Should someone be called? Shaking her head, the woman walked away, and she forgot to thank her. The ground stopped moving and people dismissed her again. Letting out a long breath, she shakily stood up.

There was a payphone at the end of the terminal, and she stood there staring at the numbers hoping they'd form some kind of order. Any number she could recall would probably be for the States and be impossible to reach, but she was begging for memories at this point. Maybe people prayed when they had no one else to turn to. She tried it. Maybe she'd been religious at one point and God liked her. Maybe she'd been atheist, so she made sure to include an apology. So what if she never received an answer, staring at the payphone wasn't going to get her anywhere any faster. Her bus would be leaving soon and she still wouldn't know if she should even be on it.

"Excuse me, miss."

She stepped away from the phone so he could use it before realizing he'd spoken to her in English.

"No, I have a question to ask you."

Oh, another one of those pamphlet people. She turned halfway to look at him, an American black man with somber features and a close shave. He didn't have any papers. He wore a dark leather jacket, sunglasses, and a sling pack. Didn't look like a tourist. It took less than a second to register all this before she started to shake again.

"You alright?"

"What do you want?" she asked, trying to control her voice.

"Sorry to disturb you," he took off his sunglasses and tucked them inside his jacket, "uh, my friend thought you looked familiar and wanted me to ask your name."

"No. No, I- I have to go." She'd lost her bearings and had to look around for the bus line again.

"It's alright," said a female voice somewhere in her periphery before stepping into view.

A phone number, she thought.

They had her hedged in, the American and this Slavic woman with copper hair. They both appeared to be military, though the man stood like it while the woman only smiled gently.

She hadn't stopped shaking. "Na…Natasha?"

"Relax, El, we aren't here to cause a scene." _Natasha_ smiled amiably, like they were old friends. "Just need to ask a few questions."

The hiss of hydraulics announced a departure. She gripped the now crumpled ticket in her palm. "What did you just call me?"

...

The comfortable room they seated her in at the embassy was probably meant to relax the nerves that had ricocheted inside her during the entire ride to Belgrade. In the car, the two Avengers— _oh my god, they were Avengers, oh dear god_ —had flanked her during the ride, taking both window seats. Maybe they thought she'd pop a door and run. Maybe, like the soldier, they expected sniper fire and wanted her on the inside.

She'd been told very few things: one that her name was Elira and she was from Arizona, two that she had masters in mathematics and computer programming, and three that her memories of her mother's death were regrettably accurate. She'd been adopted at age three by a U.S. Marine stationed in Iran. There was a divorce, he left, so it was just her and mom.

Natasha had been the friendliest, but between her and the stolid man seated on her right, she was more comfortable with his silence than Natasha's neatly crafted dialogue. It wasn't that she seemed insincere, but her familiarity with Elira was unnerving.

There was a deliberation going on outside the room that Elira tried to ignore. It didn't sound like it was about her, being between Natasha and the man named Sam about a "him." The door opened and Natasha walked in with an exhausted smile and a ceramic mug of coffee.

As soon as she sat down on the opposite sofa, Elira started to sweat. She sat ramrod straight on the cushion, eyes darting back and forth. The questions started, and she tried to calm down. When her hands trembled, she pressed them between her knees.

"Take your time," Natasha kept saying. "This isn't a test, you're not being timed."

When she knew she hadn't answered one of Natasha's questions to her liking, she sucked in her breath. Natasha simply got up and left the room.

Meeting up with the soldier was no longer an option, but at least she knew him better than these people. They knew her name, her history, yet the haste with which papers and plane tickets were provided told her this wasn't just a friendly rescue. She was not being taken home, she was being transferred.

Soon she was on the tarmac following Natasha to a small jet, then she was on the jet with Sam sitting across the aisle, and finally she was in New York City being hustled into a town car. During all this, the only thing stopping her from quaking and vomiting was the fear of drawing more attention to herself.

Time carried on as a blur. She was placed in a psychiatric hospital, moved from there to a care facility, from there to some other place, and soon eight weeks had passed. She was questioned and coddled and interrogated and frightened by a number of forgettable people in lab coats, dark suits, and scholarly sweaters. She couldn't stop herself from panicking at times, even when no one was in the room, even when the nurses were kind or the weather was good. No matter how clean her living quarters were or how much space she was given to breathe and think, she felt disjointed.

When the Avengers facility came into view during her latest transfer, she sighed with relief. This could only be her last stop before they let her go.

Natasha laid out a series of photographs on the table of the small meeting room, the soft _flip-flap_ of each one hitting the surface calmed Elira's nerves.

"Do you remember any of these places?"

She did, but didn't know from where or when. "Yes."

Natasha pointed to a photograph of a large burnt-out building with several blue tarps lying in the foreground. "Did you do that?"

The question made her heart drop like a stone into her stomach. There was angry muttering in the observation room, and Natasha calmly removed the photos from the table. Slipping each one back into the folder, she stood and leaned partway over the table.

"El, it's going to be alright. I'm sorry it hasn't been for a long time. I really am."

Elira absorbed her tone more than her words. After that they let her psychiatrist stay in the room during the questions. They also let someone else ask them.

Captain Rogers took a seat across the table from her, providing her with the warmest smile. "Good to see you again, El. How're you feeling?"

She furrowed her brow, looked between him and the psychiatrist, and asked, "When did we meet?"

An awkward silence fell over the room. Rogers too looked at her psychiatrist then back at her. "I'm sorry. I had thought…do you not remember me?"

"I don't remember any of you at al." Elira never changed her expression.

"No one told you then, huh?" Rogers directed this at the psychiatrist.

A crossing of legs and clearing of the throat. "We assumed she'd had it explained to her before she came to us."

"Assumed?" The way he says it tells Elira people don't win arguments with him often. "Right. Well, she's being told now." He turned back to her. "Two years ago we were developing a recruitment program for which you applied and interviewed—most of the buildings didn't exist yet as they do now, if that helps. Natasha referred you, said she knew your mother, so I interviewed you personally. Unfortunately the program was terminated and you should have received a phone call. Does any of this ring a bell?"

Elira is a little afraid to break eye contact as he seems to demand it. Shaking her head, she says, "I don't remember any of that."

Her psychiatrist steps in, there's an interchange, and Rogers apologizes to Elira though she doesn't think it's for the right thing.

"What were those pictures of?" she asks now. "Why do I remember them, but not you? Why is this the first time I'm asked about them?"

Rogers sits back, rubbing together the fingers of his left hand. "They were Hydra bases. Am I free to discuss _this_ with her?" he asks the psychiatrist with thinly veiled frustration. "Good. We've kept a lid on the number of people who know this for security reasons. They were Hydra bases that you found online after the file dump. You destroyed them."

Elira allowed herself a jolt of shock. "How? Why?"

"The 'why' we have a theory for; the 'how' I was hoping you could tell me." His eyes softened though his mouth frowned. "It was shortly after your mother died. We've since learned that was a Hydra hit, but apparently you'd connected those dots yourself."

She tried to look out the curving glass wall at her back, not trusting it to be one-way to the rest of the world.

"El? Do you remember how—?"

"No." She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth. "I'm sorry, I don't."

Rogers nodded understandingly, but gave her therapist a side-glance.

"Did I kill people?" Elira asked. When Rogers confirmed that she had, Elira shifted in her seat and looked away. "Your theory…was it revenge?"

"Yeah. You may remember it differently, I wouldn't want to suggest speculation as fact—"

"No, I-I do understand." She willed herself to stay still and hold her breath.

After a few more questions, Rogers left that room and entered the observation room. "She's not fidgeting."

"You noticed that too?" Natasha crossed her arms. "First interviews she couldn't keep still, now she'll barely lift her head."

"Is it me?" he asks. "She remembered your name, maybe she's more comfortable around you."

Natasha was already heading for the door while saying, "It's not you."

In the meeting room, her newest question was, "How did they get you to cooperate?"

Rogers thought he saw the slightest clench of Elira's jaw. Quietly, she described her abuse, a subject that never failed to make him restless with anger, but that Natasha could sit through with apparent ease. The psychiatrist interjected saying she didn't have to talk about that sooner than she was ready to. Elira talked over her, painting a picture of the "interrogation" room, what happened there, and some of the things she was forced to speak. Natasha remained serene throughout this recount, and Elira relaxed subtly.

There was a small lunch break. Then Rogers reappeared all too soon.

"When will these end?" Elira asked.

Rogers dropped his gaze. "Last one."

She sipped her bottle of water from lunch. Her psychiatrist had left a short while ago at Rogers' request, and Elira didn't mind either way. He laid two enlarged photographs in front of her, vintage black-and-whites of a smiling young American soldier. He had her roommate's face.

"Do you remember seeing this man at the compound?"

Elira studied both images for a leisurely moment without changing her expression even slightly. "What would he look like now?"

"This."

She couldn't imagine her roommate smiling this brightly. "Yes, a man who looked like this was there."

There was a weighted pause that made Elira actually look up at Rogers' face. He was watching her closely, like they all had, but though she'd kept a straight face he hadn't. His expression had grown dark, his mouth set in a tight line. On him it looked more like a pout; he had nice lips, she couldn't help but notice.

An edge of panic entered her voice as she asked, "Did I say something wrong?"

The dark look dropped and he cleared his throat. "Did you ever interact with the man in this picture?"

Elira was still confused. Did he want her to talk about the Asset, or some old man who looked just like him? How old were these photos? How old was her roommate?

"Is he as old as you?" she asked.

"Yes."

The world got a little brighter, harsher, hurting her eyes so much she squinted. Her friend had belonged to Hydra for a long time. When he'd spoken of cryostasis she'd been so quick to deny its existence she hadn't considered the implications. They'd just _kept_ him? Wiped his mind so he'd be lost and stupid, forced him to do vile things, and…had they planned that, for her?

Rogers was standing up now, holding her trembling hand as she covered her eyes with the other. He didn't understand why she was crying, just kept saying things like, "You're safe here. It's just us." He thought she was having an anxiety attack.

Natasha opened the door, mentioned the psychiatrist, and Elira stopped her.

"No, no. No, please, I…I'll answer more questions. I'll be fine."

"There's no punishment for not being fine," Natasha said firmly. "If you want help, you ask for it."

"Do you want help?" Rogers asked in a softer voice than hers, but still firm because it was his. "Elira?"

"El," he'd pronounced it okay, but it was hard on her ears, "just El. I got out of that place and halfway across Europe on my own, I don't need help." She bumped the table with her elbow and bit her lip. "I'm _fine_."

Natasha left and Rogers took his seat again. Elira finished off her glass in one long drink. After a deep breath of his own, Rogers asked, "What happened to him after the two of you escaped?"

Elira heard a sound of stifled protest from Natasha. He must've skipped some questions, or maybe he'd given away something he shouldn't have. Tired, she decided to think less and just answer this one. "I left him behind not far from the compound. I ran into the forest and he did not follow me."

"He did not?" When she shook her head he asked, "Why do you think he didn't follow you?"

"He didn't know what was happening, he was confused. I spoke to him a little, but he didn't reply."

Natasha opened the door again. "Steve."

He moved the other chair for her to join, but she hesitated before sitting down. Elira felt a bit like an entertainer attracting an audience and didn't like it. There would now be questions coming at her from both sides. She kept calm.

"Elira," Natasha always pronounced it correctly, "was that the last time you saw the Soldier?"

Oh, so she called him that too. "No."

Rogers went tense, his eyes locking on her, clasped hands tightening just barely. Not a single thing changed about Natasha. She acted polite and professional, but it seemed like she always knew the answer she was going to get, like she was bored. "Where did you see him again?"

"Not far from where you found me."

That changed things. Rogers looked at Natasha whose pupils shrunk. Elira heard a slight hitch in her breathing too.

"Where, when?" she was quickly asked.

There was no risk in lying when they were already swimming in so much truth. "Near the neighborhood I lived in shortly before meeting you. That's why I tried to leave, I thought they'd found me."

Not even halfway a lie, Elira thought. They had been afraid of being found, and it was her roommate's idea to leave. As she had repeatedly since leaving the bus station, Elira felt a pang of guilt at not having caught up to him. Touching her favorite of the photographs, she asked,

"What's his real name?"

"James," Rogers answered thoughtfully. "I knew him."

Natasha pressed her knee into the side of his thigh until he bounced his leg to signal he'd gotten the point.

James. James, James, James. What a boring name. She slid the photo towards herself, unconsciously smiling a little. Given his age at least he wasn't named Walter or Herb. Horace. Clinton.

"El?"

She straightened out her face. "He looks happy."

Natasha leaned forward. "El, tell us exactly what happened the last time you saw him; second by second."

Lying not being her strong suit, Elira took a breath and momentarily considered what her life would be like if he hadn't followed her home like a concerned stray. "I'd just stepped out of a grocery store…"

She described exactly how she'd run, down to the street names when possible. She did not mention that he had been following, but admitted she'd never looked over her shoulder to check. When she got to the fenced-off alley, she phased through the fence and ran home.

They bought it. Strangely, that hurt her. The whole process hurt her because it took an act just to tell them the barebones truth. And it no longer felt like a truth anyway, that she had been scared enough to run. Now the memory was laughable, and she wished he was here to laugh with her.

The questions became very banal after that: what was he wearing, how had he behaved, did he speak to the homeless man, could she see his arm, did she think he'd noticed her. When they got nothing more out of her here, they asked about her interactions with him at the compound. On this subject, she sealed up and resorted to craning her neck to keep them both out of her periphery. She didn't want to think about the Asset, or Two-Six, or truck beds full of rain water. All she wanted was to go home, and they couldn't give her that. Home had been her mother.

Turning completely in her seat, Elira stared out the thick glass at the compound below. They said she was brain damaged; she was. They said she hadn't acted like this before; she hadn't. She didn't feel vengeful towards Hydra. She didn't feel awe at being in the presence of Avengers. That sounded contrary to who she was, but she couldn't be that person again. Hydra had taken that too after all.

* * *

 **Extra thanks to those of you who've reviewed and insisted I update! I need to finish this before the muse is gone, so keep bugging me to work at it. You're the best.**


	11. One (The Reunion)

**I meant for this chapter to be twice as long, but I've kept you waiting long enough.**

* * *

It had been four months; 2958 hours, and he hadn't given up hope that she was alive. Maybe she was still in Serbia somewhere, or maybe she'd finally called home. Either way, when the bus came up empty of her, he hadn't gone searching. It was for the best. If she was dead, his mind told him, it was still for the best. His conscience, meanwhile, tallied another failure.

Bucky got to his landing, the endless flight of stairs continuing on above him and spiraling away below him. He'd taken his time approaching Bucharest, stalling at bus stations like a common pervert, shopping for that one face. When he finally arrived, work and lodging came pretty simply. No questions asked, cash the only required papers, and he caused no one any trouble. Kept his head down, acted like he'd always lived here, and worked hard to keep his bottomless guilt from drowning him.

Toying with the key in his pocket, he stopped mid step. There was a familiar floral notebook leaning against his apartment door. Quickly, he looked up and down the infinite stairwell, but saw and heard no one. He left the notebook where it was, heading up to the roof and entering his apartment from the balcony. Finding nobody inside, he checked the front door for any signs of tampering before opening it. The notebook fell at his feet and he hastily brought it inside.

Could be she left it there as a sign, could be someone else was using it to flush him out. He opened it slowly to the middle, saw her drawings, her handwriting, and was filled with dread. She wouldn't have parted with this easily. Glancing at his own journal atop the fridge, he wondered how much time he had. In closing her notebook, he tilted it downward, and something fell out from the first two pages.

It was a postcard of one of the local tourist spots, an old museum undergoing restoration. On the back was written "1905."

By nine o'clock, he'd already scoped the area around the museum from the rooftops down. This was the last place he wanted surprises. Maybe she was just trying to discreetly make contact, or maybe she was in worse trouble than he'd imagined. If it was her, he didn't know whether to be angry or relieved. He'd stopped debating how he felt about her after his first week alone in Bucharest. He cared, and he wanted to know she was safe so he could stop worrying.

At three after nine he spotted a woman who could be her, sitting outside a closed café. She hadn't been there before, so she must've arrived promptly at nine. The business was closed, though others remained open. Tourists were still parading under the streetlights, but she was dressed like a local and seated in dim lighting. She wanted to be noticed by him.

Bucky was standing in shadow on a cross street, hands in his jacket pockets, trying to stay out of other pedestrians' way as he watched her across the intersection. He'd already checked the alleys in her vicinity, but one or two rooftops had been difficult to reach unseen. Anyone could be watching her from up there, waiting for him to appear. Pulling the bill of his baseball cap lower, he decided he'd circle around and approach her from her side of the street, using the awnings as cover instead of walking out into the open.

Just as he began walking away, he had second thoughts. Why stage an ambush at night? Conditions for capture shouldn't consist of a congested street with low light levels, and the bait placed in such an inconvenient spot for a sniper to sight his approach. Not attacking him at his apartment meant they didn't want a fight, but to take him out in the open? Hell, he knew of at least seven better locations for that in this neighborhood alone.

And short of it being Hydra, who he knew was no longer much threat, what's the worst that could happen? He'd be killed? Arrested? Kidnapped? There was nothing left to be afraid of except the thought of her suffering.

He wove through the mirthful crowd, across the intersection—no cars, the streets were pedestrian only—and walked directly over to her table. He nearly took a seat, but his nerves were jumping like oil in a wet pan. Gradually she looked up from her device, proving with warm eyes that she wasn't a decoy, and plucked the headphones from her ears. She did not look scared, and when he offered his hand, she took it.

There were very few places he could take her, besides the apartment, where he knew he couldn't be watched. Privacy was all he truly cared about these days. Once he got her to a different location, an alcove on an unpopulated street, he stood her under the security light to get a better look.

His first concern was to make sure she hadn't been harmed, had she been taken or coerced. All he saw was a healthy but nervous face. Even the dull scar on her chin that she'd received from a beating had finally healed, unless she was wearing coverup.

"Is anyone listening in?" he asked quietly in Romanian, voicing his second concern.

She looked confused then shook her head, and started taking off her jacket and showing him her belongings. "You can check; no trackers, no wire."

He stopped her before she could take off more layers, willing to believe her. He noticed her swallow hard when she put her jacket back on, and replaced the contents of her pockets. "What happened?"

"At the bus station, some people recognized me and took me home to the States." She sighed in what sounded like exasperation. "Look, it was the Avengers, okay? They'd tried to recruit me before my mom died."

She licked her lips, clearly unhappy, but at least she kept eye contact.

Himself, he was breathless. "They didn't…follow you here?"

"Shouldn't have. They know I left the country, I left a note and I was easy to track to the airport. Got to Italy, booked a hotel, and made myself scarce. Hitchhiked and what-have-you until I got here." She smiled brightly. "Hi."

He'd wanted to see her for months and now here she was, but fear had perched on his shoulder and was whispering in his ear. There was a familiar, unwanted prickling sensation up his spine. He took her by the hand once more, wetting his lips as he walked, afraid that his instincts were off and what felt right was wrong. He wanted urgently to trust her.

They barely spoke as he led her home, even though he took strange routes and hurried her along. Once the door was secured behind them, he glanced around the apartment to make sure nothing had changed, and turned back to her. She looked down at her feet with a small smile, and he pulled her into a deep embrace. To his relief she returned the gesture and held him tightly.

When they finally let go, she wiped her eyes and he asked, "How long can you stay?"

She held back a laugh. "Few days. They'll get anxious if I don't make contact soon."

He nodded, content with that for now, and turned to show her the place, when she pulled him back.

"Hey, hey," she patted his arms, "let me look at you."

Swallowing hard, he bore the scrutiny as she gave him the once over before cupping his face in her hands and beaming.

"You've been eating well."

Bucky scoffed and blushed, and she trailed her thumbs over his cheekbones as she let him go. He hesitated at the touch, surprised again by what human contact felt like. He wanted to lean into it, but giving into want was something he hadn't yet gotten used to.

His place was twice the size of her old one; full kitchen with a stovetop island, a tiny private bathroom, and both balcony and fire escape access. Three routes to get in, three routes to get out. He slept in the main room, on a twin mattress in a sleeping bag, raised off the floor by pallets. Clearing his throat, he asked if she was hungry, while suddenly conscious of the missing tiles in the backsplash, the supermarket flyers pasted over the windows, and the layers of smell left by decades of past renters. She shook her head and slipped her knapsack off her shoulders and onto the floor.

"Do you have my notebook?"

Right, that. He nudged it off the top of the fridge and handed it to her with his left hand. She took it, stared at his gloved hand for a moment, and pinched her lips. "They're looking for you, you know."

He froze. He hadn't asked her much at all about her acquaintance with the Avengers. Was she here to convince him to go back? "Who is, all of them?"

"I don't know. I never met _all_ of them; but Captain Rogers said he knew you, and they asked some questions about you."

"Why would they ask you, what- what did you tell them?"

She shirked her jacket, and laid it and her notebook on top of the knapsack. "The truth mostly. When they raided our compound they found footage of us escaping. They didn't tell me that right away, so what I said matched up with what they already knew and…yeah."

She summarized the rest of her interviews with Rogers and Natasha. Never did they mention the footage of the bedroom, so she could only hope Hydra had destroyed it in time. However, she did not mention this to him.

"They said your name is James, so I've been calling you that in my head. Is there something you'd rather I call you?"

He swallowed hard. "I've been going by Max. Um, but you…can call me Bucky."

She arched a brow. "Okay."

"It's an old nickname. It's what Steve called me when…" While alone, he'd rehearsed the unlikely scenario where he divulged his past to her. Now she was Steve's earpiece.

Bucky cleared his throat and removed his outerwear. "And what's your name?"

"Elira. Are you alright? With me?" She rubbed her palms together. "I don't have to stay here, I checked into a hotel."

"Yeah? How long have you been here, and how did you find me?"

Elira crossed her arms. "Three days; by hacking security cameras."

"No," he said in disbelief, "it's a big city."

"Did most of the work at home—once they allowed me back my own place and funds. I narrowed down a few men who could be you, where they went, how they walked. And then I found you."

She could hack and profile, lose the Avengers in a short timeframe, and escaped a compound full of armed guards. Possible reasons for Hydra's hostility toward her were racking up. "And the Avengers didn't know about this?"

"I was extremely diligent, so I should hope the hell not. Apparently, I was a big computer nerd in college, and that all came right back to me." As soon as she'd gotten her hands on a processor, some things had metaphorically clicked into place. Exhilaration was a beautiful word for what she felt when _that_ happened. "Mathematics didn't. I had to, relearn, that. Still working on it."

"You forgot math?" he asked with a crook of his brow and a hint of a smile.

Elira would've liked to see him really smile, like his younger self had in photos, but this subject wasn't leading to a smile. "Yes. Doctors, X-rays, physical therapists; they all said I was fucked before I even got to the compound. Head trauma mixed with drugs that chewed up my nervous system, hypothermia and pneumonia definitely, plus some other medical riff-raff. Anyway, yeah, can't remember algebra now…and half a dozen other skills."

This speech began in Romanian, but she got lost on certain words before giving up altogether and using English. Bucky rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. "Me hitting you couldn't have helped."

Biting her lips, Elira replied, "I did drop a bed on you."

Awkwardly, they chuckled, and he wiped imaginary grime off the kitchen counter. He wanted to apologize for what he as the soldier had done to her, but he wasn't sure if he should or if she'd even want to hear it.

There wasn't much at hand to offer her except a spot on the battered loveseat and a beer. They talked and drank, and he found himself missing the woman he'd met four months ago until he realized something. Elira was just "Sabrina" with the volume turned up. Elira had so much to tell him and so she did. While she spoke, she fidgeted, tapping the bottle with her fingers or flinching when he gestured. He noted it as an improvement that she flinched because it was something Hydra had conditioned her not to do.

They'd turned to each other on the little couch. She spoke of therapy and reuniting with old friends, of neighbors who'd helped her clean out her mother's house and sell it. This was all shared as statement of fact, practically unemotional unless she expressed exhaustion or anxiety. None of it made her happy to tell.

He didn't like reading her the way he would a mark, noting tells and ticks, but she confused him. "Why didn't you stay there? Why did you travel all the way here on your own time and money?"

Setting her empty bottle on the counter behind them, she bent her brow. "You. I abandoned you with no explanation."

"You didn't really have a choice."

"But you wouldn't have known that if I hadn't come back. I almost didn't because I thought you'd be angry, or just glad I was gone." Rubbing her chin on her sleeve, she looked around the hole he'd made home. "I can't believe you stayed. Here, in Bucharest. What happened?"

Bucky finished his beer, hoping this would give him a second to overcome this strange sense of shame her question brought. "I stayed…I stayed because…I don't know."

Elira leant back against the armrest. "You always know. Do you have memories here? You don't have to tell me."

He got up and collected her bottle. "I work nights, or did you know that? Because I had tonight off."

"I did not," she perked up. "Lucky coincidence. I assume it's still alright if I, stay here, tonight?"

He gestured at her knapsack. "Were you not planning on it?"

With a cynical smile, Elira got up, retrieved a toiletry bag from her things, and closed the bathroom door behind her. It wasn't yet midnight, and he'd been asleep much of the day. If she was going to sleep, he could stay up and read, though it felt like they had so much more to talk about. Or rather, her talk and he listen. He enjoyed that more than he could comprehend.

She came back out, hair down, sweats on. He unzipped the sleeping bag so they might both share it, and apologized for not having an extra blanket. They slipped under it together, and he let her use his natural arm as a pillow while he lay on his back.

Furrowing her brow, Elira snuggled up to him and held his right leg gently between her knees. "I missed you."

This was said into his shirt, and he thought he'd imagined it. With a broad yawn, she mumbled some semblance of "goodnight" in one of their languages, hummed in satisfaction, and instantly fell asleep.

Bucky thought when he first saw her face again under the security light that he just needed to identify her and ascertain she was well. He did not expect he'd have to fight back a smile at simply seeing her face. At some point it had imprinted on his subconscious as a remarkably _good_ thing. He didn't have many of those to draw on.

His arm was deadening under her weight. An earthquake couldn't wake her, but he didn't want to move it. If he focused he could feel her breath warming his skin beneath his shirt. He needed her there.


	12. One (The Hotel)

Morning sifted through the papered windows, stirring his senses. The sleeping bag had mostly shifted off of him, but half of his body was very warm. Elira had remained tucked up against him throughout the night, and she'd burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag. He lay for a while before carefully maneuvering himself off the bed.

When the bathroom door clicked shut, she pulled the sleeping bag around her and sighed. Body still asleep, her mind stretched, yawned, and began asking all the difficult questions she'd kept to herself the night before.

Once she was in the bathroom, Bucky made them both breakfast, feeling oddly self-conscious about how bland it would be. When Hydra fed him, it hadn't been gourmet mess. Cryofreeze on a full stomach was mildly painful once thawed, but an empty stomach was a thousand times worse as his system roared for caloric intake. He would eat anything they gave him.

Bucky set down his stirring spoon to catch his breath. He felt cold inside and out, but there was nothing to do except wait for it to pass. Through the ghosting prickle of thaw, he sensed someone standing before him.

"You alright?" Elira asked tonelessly, eyes locked on his, body relaxed.

Swallowing, he turned off the burner. "You want the chair or the couch?"

Their breakfast of oatmeal was eaten in silence. She mentioned liking it with fruit when she was a kid, so he said he'd take her to the local farmer's market. Sleeping with her had thrown off his internal clock for tonight's shift, but it meant spending a whole day with her. As they pulled on their coats and shoes, a tickle in the back of his mind told him this was all pretend.

His fellow tenants were perfectly disinterested in him, so leaving his apartment with a handsome woman attracted zero attention. As they walked through his sector, he showed her the route they'd taken last night, and pointed out on her pocket map the quickest ways out of the capital. In public, Elira did not hold onto him or defer to him much, but she never wandered out of his sight either. He couldn't decide if she did this for his comfort or her own.

They'd just returned to his building when Elira leaned against the exterior wall, breathing hard and shivering. Bucky didn't need to think before guiding her off the street and into a tight alley. He didn't know what to say to someone _else_ going through a panic attack, so he quietly, perhaps awkwardly, repeated, "You're right here, you're right here."

As she shook in his arms, Bucky was very aware of how much he didn't like loitering outside his own building, but having Elira with him served as a partial disguise. He was just a guy with his girl looking for a little privacy. It was like a feather dragged over his soul, reminding him again that he'd lived other lives.

Eventually, Elira stilled and gulped. "Thank you."

He wasn't ready to let go. Lowering his head slightly, he noted she smelled of a different shampoo than the one he owned.

"Check out of your hotel," he said into her hair. "Stay here."

Elira melted against him. Lifting her head, she looked him in the face. The tip of her nose was red, her eyes watery and round, but she was studying him hard. He was about to wipe her tearstains, when she pulled away and did it herself, her bag of fruit crinkling in one hand.

"Why were you saying that?" she asked.

His cheek twitched, and he looked down the alley before he could meet her eyes again. "I say it. To myself. When that happens."

She gasped a laugh, sniffled, and licked her lips. "I always say, 'I'm not here.' Didn't you hear me?"

He hadn't.

She held his hand as they ascended the stairs to his apartment, still shaky and wary of walking too close to the railing. Once inside, she went directly to the bathroom, and he out to the balcony.

After ten minutes, it was like it had never happened. They talked, she joked, and for lunch they grazed on the fruit they'd picked up at the market. She left to check out of her hotel, and was long gone before he realized he hadn't asked when she'd be back.

Just as he was debating skipping work to go find her, there was a knock on the door, and she hopped into the apartment. "Thought I'd be back sooner, sorry."

Maybe there was no hotel, maybe it had actually been a rendezvous and she'd been informing on him. Maybe this was all still a trap waiting to spring. "Which hotel?"

"Uh, one of the chains. Oh," she fished something out of her coat pocket and handed it to him, "I stole a pen."

He read the printed name on the pen. "Those all have security cameras."

Pressing her tongue to her teeth, Elira leant against the stovetop to think. "Yeah. I might've entered the building by suspicious means and turned them off. I didn't hack cameras for two months just to have them spot me too."

He smiled thinly, rotating the pen between his fingers. "I have to go to work. Stay out of trouble until I get back? Er, I don't have TV or anything."

Elira shrugged. "I brought a book."

He'd changed for work while waiting for her, but now with his hand on the doorknob, he couldn't look away from her. "Thank you for coming here."

He left before she could reply.

...

The sun was still bleakly hidden behind the skyline when he came home to find her gone again. Since the night that shopkeeper followed her home, he disliked trusting her on her own. That and his suspicions of the "hotel" had not abated. If she was in trouble, he wanted to save her. If she was trouble, he needed to run.

A sound at the door made him jump then sigh in frustration. "Don't do that again."

"Like I have a key."

"What?" He realized she'd phased through the door instead of opening it. "Leave a note, tell me in advance, something so I know you're coming back."

"Left my knapsack where you could see it, didn't I? Here, put that in the fridge."

The apartment was washed with the smells of fresh bread, spiced meat, and roast potatoes. They had to clear room on his counter for all of it.

They ate from the containers, sparing his few cheap dishes another wash. He felt too exhausted to talk much, and mid-conversation he collapsed onto the mattress and began drifting off. Elira put away the food, pleased with her adventure into Romanian cuisine, wondering if she should travel more often, and… She was getting ahead of herself. There were still hard questions to be asked.

Elira lay down beside him. "Can I ask you something before you fall asleep?"

Bucky grunted, eyes closed, but listening.

"Would you…do you _want_ to go back to the US?"

Her voice was as soft as it usually was, but still his eyes snapped open.

"I just don't like the idea of leaving you behind again," Elira quickly explained, "especially when I know people who can help you."

"I can't go back. No one can know I'm here. You know that."

Her steady gaze reminded him of the one she'd had back at the compound. "How long do you plan to keep running?"

"Look, let me sleep. I don't have answers for you now."

Elira mouthed a quiet "okay" before sitting upright. "Steve Rogers seems like a kind man. There aren't many of those."

Bucky closed his eyes and pretended she wasn't there. He couldn't sleep easily though and found himself awake again after what felt like no time at all. Elira was reading a book at the little table, resting her elbows on the newspapers spread over it. She'd been right to ask what she had. If he missed a night of work, he could find more work.

" _Myshka,"_ he said, his voice throaty from bad sleep, "can you, come here?"

Surprised he was awake, Elira hesitated in case she'd imagined it. Then Bucky sat up, proving he was awake, and she set her book aside and went over.

"The soldier, the…stuff they put in my head. I can't guarantee I won't become that again. If that happens around you," he gripped her shoulder with his left hand as she knelt down, "you run. Okay? Don't try to stop me."

She rubbed her lips together. "Mm, what stopped you the last couple times?"

"I don't know exactly. It took a long time to shake him though."

"Yes, but, what happened when it was us? Did I do something to knock you out of it?"

He looked her hard in the eye. _"Don't try to stop me."_

"Yeah, yeah…but if it happens when we're around other people, won't I be better able to stop you than they will?"

He pressed his tongue to his cheek, placated by her reasonable tone. When he didn't respond she added,

"Especially other people with guns? Shouldn't I stop you before they start—"

"If there are guns, you run. Being involved with the Avengers means they'll find out and come for you, so if I'm ever not in control _do not get involved_. _Run._ "

Her features softened. If the Avengers were involved, they could come get him, maybe help him. Steve would help him at least.

"Elira."

"Okay, yes, don't get involved, I won't." She rubbed her eyes.

Hell, she shouldn't be here. He didn't know what the next hour would be like, didn't think he could keep from harming her in his sleep or during a manic episode. Best case scenario he'd scare her off and she'd run home to…whoever.

"You should go home." The words were rough to get out.

"I just got here. I checked out of the hotel to be with you. Don't send me away now."

"No, please—this is important. I can't keep you here, you need to listen to me."

Elira pulled away and stood. "No. You think because I act quiet and peaceful that I'm actually like that? You completely forgot how we escaped that place, didn't you? It was me, all me, fighting my own conditioning, drugs, and you. We wouldn't be here if I'd done whatever you made me do."

"Alright," he raised his voice to match hers, "whatever 'I' made you do. Because me trying to hurt you and me trying to keep you alive are the same person."

"But you can't see me that clearly?" She prodded her own chest. "If I'm going to protect myself it will be while protecting you too. If you don't want that, I can't stay."

"You were never going to stay."

"I could, but you're too afraid."

"I'm _very_ afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of—Of nothing, quiet down."

"Of what, Bucky?" Elira lowered her voice. "They can't hurt you again if you don't exist. And if you'd let me talk to the right people you won't hurt anyone either."

"You won't talk to anyone," his voice had grown desperate. "I've been that _person_ for too long…there's no place for me. You can't stay, you don't need to. Go home and leave me and all of that in the past. Don't let any of it hurt you again. Please, I can't hurt you again."

Her gaze drifted over his left arm before losing focus. She shivered, and he pulled his coat on to cover the damn arm.

"No, not that." She knelt down beside him. "I can't hurt you either. Don't lose control because I can't hurt you again, and I don't want anyone else to either. I…know you've done other things…but you looked terrified that night. I can't see that again."

Elira didn't actually think she could save him. In her heart she just hoped Steve had all the words she didn't to get Bucky to come home, to get him help, to save him before he found a sturdy noose or one found him. She tucked his hair behind his ear, and wondered if he wanted her, hoping he didn't. She wasn't ready and neither was he.

No, that wasn't how he felt about her. He had thought about it though, thought about the numerous women James had enamored. Didn't want her like that. Just, trusted her. Wanted that, the trust, the patience. He was used to being alone, but he was inexperienced in loneliness. It was like starvation, slow and debilitating. Life without her, without anyone, was proving to be the most difficult part of all this.

"Tomorrow morning," he said, feeling the warmth of her gaze. "I'll take you to the train station. I won't leave with you, but I'll watch you go. I'll come home when I'm ready."

Soft, sad eyes watched his and knew he was telling the truth. Leaning forward, Elira kissed his forehead. "Okay. Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake."

So Bucky slept, deeply, and Elira watched the door and windows, listened to the neighbors, and rehearsed the lies she'd have to tell when she got home. Perhaps Steve had been Bucky's friend once, but for now she was his friend, and if he wanted peace she wouldn't take it from him. She'd wait.


End file.
